Drugs recovered from two accused separately when nabbed together must be considered as separate seizures: Bombay HC

Drugs recovered from two persons separately when they are apprehended together, should be considered as separate seizures, the Bombay High Court said while granting bail to a man arrested for possession of ganja (cannabis) last year.

Sagar Borkar, the accused, requested bail on the grounds that the police had purportedly only seized 10 kg—an intermediate amount of the contraband from him. However, according to the police, the contraband that Borkar and the other suspects in the case were found with weighed 22 kg, which is a commercially significant amount.

It further claimed that since the duo was travelling together, the charge of conspiracy was also invoked in the case. A single bench of Justice S G Dige, in its order dated September 15, refused to accept the police's contention. The bench noted that the police had recovered 10.319 kg of ganja from Borkar and 11.24 kg from the co-accused.

It is alleged that both the applicant and the co-accused were travelling together, and the contraband recovered from their possession was commercial quantity. In my view, though the applicant and co-accused were found together, they were carrying the contraband individually. The recovery of the contraband from the possession of the applicant (Borkar) and the co-accused should be considered separately, the court said.

According to the specifics of the case, Borkar and another person were both detained for ganja possession. While the authorities discovered 10 kg of the substance on Borkar, the co-accused in the case had 11 kg.