Law:

Section:

Petitioners are charged under Article 3/4 of Prohibition (Enforcement of Hadd) Order, 1979 for having been found transporting 3750 kilograms of `charas' in a truck loaded with tomato crates over and above the contraband crates. Two of the petitioners are a driver and a conductor, respectively, and one of them is said to be the owner of the truck. They were apprehended on 17-9-1991. Their bail application was dismissed by this Court on 22-2-1992 with direction to the prosecution agency to put in challan in the Court at the earliest and that the trial should be finalised speedily. The challan was, however, put in Court on 13-9-1992 after about a year of the arrest of the accused in the case.

2.   Petitioners filed an application for bail on 10-11-1992 under the third proviso to subsection (1) of section 497 , Cr.P.C. Their bail application was dismissed vide order dated 5-12-1992 dubbing them as hardened and desperate criminals because of the way and manner they had committed the offence of transporting such a big quantity of narcotic in a truck from tribal area to settled area.