Delhi High Court granted bail to accused arrested in an FIR lodged 3 years ago by Crime Branch, Delhi Police, on allegations of recovery of huge quantity of prohibited Narcotics substance. Justice Suresh Kait also directed Vodafone to retrieve CDR and location of mobiles, taking serious view of the circumstances, as to how and why the trial court order of September 2018, to preserve CDR/location etc. was not communicated to the service provider.
Appearing on behalf of Accused, Advocate Mr. Sunil Dalal submitted that the accused was picked up on 11-10-2017 from District Bulandshahar, UP by police party and has been falsely implicated by showing alleged recovery on the next day at Delhi. He further contended that the accused had submitted two phone numbers of police party, which had arrested him to show his presence at Bulandshahar (UP) with police party a day before arrest in Delhi.
Mr. Dalal further submitted that the Trial Court had directed in September 2018 to preserve the CDRs and call details of those mobile numbers on an application moved by accused. However, the order of the trial court was deliberately not communicated to service provider i.e. Vodafone/Idea in order to conceal the factum of the arrest of accused on a day prior to the lodging of FIR. He further submitted that even the report filed by Vodafone mentioned that one mobile belonged to a member of the police party, such numbers were later de-activated to cover-up the story.
It was submitted on behalf of Service provider that directions of the trial court for preserving CDR location/data of such mobile numbers was never received by it and therefore, such details, are not available, as they are preserved only for one year. It further said that retrieval of CDR in more than 1 year old cases has to be done manually and is a time taking process.
“It seems that these mobile numbers were deactivated because the learned trial court had directed the mobile phone service providers to preserve the CDR, location and other details qua these mobile numbers. I am conscious of Section 37 of Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act, 1985. In view of afore-noted facts and circumstances, I find that there is some fishy about the whole chain of events and petitioner has been falsely implicated in the present case. However, without commenting on the merits of the case, I am of the view that petitioner deserves bail” the Court said while taking a serious view of the peculiar facts.
While granting bail to the accused, the court also directed the service provider to retrieve the CDRs and locations of the mobile numbers.
