(Prayer: This criminal original petition filed under Section 482 BNSS Act to enlarge the petitioner on bail in Crime No.110 of 2026 on the file of the respondent police.)

1. This Criminal Original Petition has been filed under Section 483 of the BNSS, for bail. The petitioner is the seventh accused in Crime No.110 of 2026 on the file of the Inspector of Police, P6 Kodungaiyur Police Station, Chennai, registered for offences under Sections 8(c), 22(c), 20(b)(ii)(A), 25 and 29(1) of the NDPS Act. The final report has been taken on file as C.C.No.1151 of 2026 by the learned I Additional Special Judge for EC & NDPS Act Cases, Chennai.

2. The case of the prosecution, as set out in the counter affidavit, is this. On 23.02.2026 at about 21.30 hours, the Sub-Inspector of Police, P6 Kodungaiyur Police Station, received information that six persons with two motorcycles were standing near the Chinnaandi Madam T.H. Road junction, Kodungaiyur, to exchange and sell narcotic substances. A police party went there and intercepted the first to sixth accused. 54 grams of methamphetamine and 20 empty plastic sachets were recovered from the first accused, and 200 grams of ganja from the second accused. Two motorcycles and five mobile phones were also seized. On interrogation, the first accused is said to have disclosed that he procured methamphetamine and ganja from Bengaluru through a supplier from Kerala and distributed them among his associates for sale. The case was registered at 08.00 hours on 24.02.2026, and the first to sixth accused were arrested on that day. The samples were forwarded to the Forensic Science Laboratory on 06.03.2026, and the report in NAR No.467 of 2026, obtained on 11.03.2026, confirms the presence of methamphetamine and cannabinoids. The eighth accused is shown as absconding.

3. Nothing was recovered from the petitioner, and he was not among the six persons intercepted. He was arrested on 07.04.2026, at 08.55 hours according to the respondent, and was remanded to judicial custody on the same day. He has been in custody for over five months. The case stood posted to 16.09.2026 for appearance. Charges are yet to be framed.

4. The petitioner's first application, Crl.O.P.No.19399 of 2026, was dismissed by a coordinate Bench on 28.07.2026. The learned Government Advocate (Criminal Side) had then submitted that the investigation was pending, and the petition was dismissed on the footing that it was too premature to consider it. This is the second application.

5. Learned counsel for the petitioner submitted that no contraband was recovered from the petitioner, from any premises or vehicle connected with him, or at his instance; that he was not at the scene on 23.02.2026 and was arrested forty-two days later; that he has been implicated only on the confession statement of a co-accused, which cannot be proved against him; that there is no call detail record, financial transaction or electronic record connecting him with the other accused; and that he has no previous case. He further submitted that the petitioner was in fact picked up by the police at about 05.36 hours on 07.04.2026, as the footage of a closed-circuit camera shows, and not at 08.55 hours as the arrest memo records; that the grounds of arrest were not furnished to him in writing, though the arrest was made after the decision of the Supreme Court in Mihir Rajesh Shah v. State of Maharashtra; and that the arrest and the remand are therefore illegal.

6. The respondent has filed a counter affidavit sworn by the Inspector of Police, P6 Kodungaiyur Police Station. It is stated that the confession statements of the arrested accused and the other material collected during investigation reveal that the petitioner was actively associated with an organised narcotic distribution network and knowingly participated in the criminal conspiracy; that, though no contraband was recovered from his exclusive physical possession, his role “cannot be viewed in isolation” (paragraph 11); that he was arrested in compliance with Section 47 of the BNSS and was informed of the grounds of arrest in a language known to him (paragraphs 13 and 15); that the quantity is a commercial quantity and Section 37 of the Act applies (paragraph 16); and that there is no change of circumstance since the dismissal of the earlier petition (paragraph 19). Learned Government Advocate (Criminal Side) opposed the petition on the basis of the counter affidavit.

7. I have considered the rival submissions and perused the material placed before me

 8. The earlier petition was not decided on its merits. It was dismissed for one reason only: the investigation was pending and the application was premature. Now the final report has been filed and taken on file.

9. The sequence of events, as the respondent's own papers present it, must be set out, because it tells its own story. The contraband was seized from the first and second accused on the night of 23.02.2026. The petitioner was not there. After his arrest, the first accused is said to have given a confession statement which names “குள்ளா (எ) கவியரசு” among the persons to whom he handed over the contraband for sale. For forty-two days after that, apart from a statement in the remand report that the absconding accused were being searched for, the papers record nothing done in relation to the petitioner and no material gathered against him. At 08.00 hours on 07.04.2026, the Inspector of Police received information. That information concerned no offence. It was only that the petitioner was standing near his house at No.107, Solaiamman Koil Street, Kodungaiyur. The police party reached the house at 08.30 hours. In the twenty-five minutes that followed, according to the remand report, the petitioner tried to escape and was caught; he was told that the first accused had named him, and he admitted the offence; he was informed of his right under Section 50 of the Act and consented to be searched by the police; members of the public having declined to be witnesses, two head constables of the same police party were made the witnesses; he was asked whether he had permission to keep methamphetamine and ganja; an intimation of arrest was written out from 08.45 hours; and he was arrested at 08.55 hours at the same place. Nothing was found on him. Column 8 of the arrest memo, meant for the articles seized from the person arrested or from his residence, reads “இல்லை”, that is, nil. He was remanded to judicial custody the same day.

10. The petitioner has placed on record a still from the footage of a closed-circuit camera. It bears the time stamp “04-07-2026 Tue 05:36:24”. The seventh of April 2026 was a Tuesday, and the stamp is consistent with that date. The petitioner's case is that the footage shows him being taken away by the police at 05.36 hours, which is about three hours and twenty minutes before the arrest recorded at 08.55 hours, and nearly two and a half hours before the police say they even received information of his whereabouts. That is a serious allegation. It goes to the truth of the account on which the petitioner was remanded. The respondent has not answered it. The counter affidavit does not mention the footage. It does not deny that the footage is of the street where the petitioner lives, it does not dispute the time stamp, and it offers no explanation. None was offered at the hearing either. On the material as it stands, the petitioner's case that he was in the hands of the police well before the time shown in the arrest memo stands unrebutted, and the account in the remand report stands unexplained against it. I record that only as the prima facie position. The footage will have to be proved, and its effect weighed, at the trial.

11. I turn to what connects the petitioner with the offence. The counter affidavit, in the column headed “Specific Overt act”, rests his involvement on “the confession statements of the arrested accused and other materials collected during investigation”. The table in paragraph 10 describes his part as “Associated in organized narcotic network / later arrested”. Paragraph 11 says that the materials collected “prima facie establish his active involvement”. No such material is identified anywhere in the affidavit. There is no recovery from the petitioner and no recovery at his instance. No call detail record, no financial transaction, no identification, no electronic record and no witness is referred to. The five mobile phones seized on 24.02.2026 are attributed in the remand report to the first, second, third, fifth and sixth accused. None is attributed to the petitioner, and nothing is said of any communication between him and any of them. The investigation is over and the final report has been filed. Even now the respondent has not pointed to a single item of material apart from the confession statements.

12. What remains is the confession statement of the first accused, and the statement that the petitioner himself is said to have made on his arrest. Both were made to police officers. Neither can be proved against the petitioner. Under Section 23(1) of the Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam, no confession made to a police officer shall be proved as against a person accused of any offence. Even a statement recorded under Section 67 of the Act by an officer invested with powers under Section 53 cannot be used as a confessional statement in the trial of an offence under the Act — Tofan Singh v. State of Tamil Nadu, (2021) 4 SCC 1. Where, apart from such statements, no substantial material was available to connect the accused with the allegations, the Supreme Court declined to interfere with their release on bail — State (by NCB) Bengaluru v. Pallulabid Ahmad Arimutta, (2022) 12 SCC 633. On this record there is nothing, other than statements that the law does not permit to be proved against him, to link the petitioner with the offence.

13. The existence of a power to arrest is one thing, and the justification for its exercise is another; an arrest is not to be made merely because it is lawful for the officer to make it as held in Joginder Kumar v. State of U.P., (1994) 4 SCC 260. Whether the power exercised here is traced to Section 42 or Section 43 of the Act, or to Section 35(1)(c) of the BNSS, it is conditioned by the officer's reason to believe that the person has committed the offence. The remand report does not say which provision was invoked, and I do not decide it. It may be noticed, however, that Section 43, which governs seizure and arrest in a public place, permits an officer to detain and search a person whom he has reason to believe to have committed an offence, and to arrest him if he has a narcotic drug or psychotropic substance in his possession. The Act treats the misuse of these powers as an offence in itself. Under Section 58(1)(c), an officer empowered under Section 42, 43 or 44 who vexatiously and unnecessarily detains, searches or arrests any person is punishable.

 14. A reason to believe must rest on material. The officer who arrested the petitioner had before him the confession statement of the first accused and nothing else. He had forty-two days in which to find something to support it, and the papers show that he found nothing. The information on which he moved on 07.04.2026 was information about where the petitioner could be found, not about what he had done. When the petitioner sought bail, the respondent was called upon to justify the arrest. It was unable to place before this Court a single item of material to show why a man on whom nothing was found, and against whom there was nothing beyond the word of a co-accused, was taken into custody for an offence that carries a minimum sentence of ten years and all but closes the door to bail. It has not answered the petitioner's case that he was taken into custody hours before the time recorded either.

15. An arrest so made, and left so unexplained, is not a legitimate exercise of the power of arrest. On the material before me it is an abuse of that power. The petitioner is twenty-three years old and has no previous case. He has been in prison since 07.04.2026 on the strength of statements that cannot be proved against him. That is a denial of the personal liberty guaranteed to him under Article 21 of the Constitution, and, as will presently be seen, the guarantee under Article 22(1) was not observed either.

16. The law on the point of, non-furnishing of grounds of arrest, is now well settled, including, in the case of Mihir Rajesh Shah v. State of Maharashtra, (2026) 1 SCC 500.In Dr. Rajinder Rajan v. Union of India, 2026 SCC OnLine SC 802, an arrest memo prepared in a template form, which recorded that the grounds of arrest had been explained to the accused before the arrest, was held to be no substitute for grounds of arrest supplied in writing, and the accused were directed to be released.

17. The petitioner was arrested on 07.04.2026. The arrest memo in the typed set is a printed form in Tamil. Column 4 is meant for the particulars of the offence and the grounds for the arrest. Against it is written, by hand, “மேற்கண்ட குற்றத்திற் ” காக , that is, “for the aforesaid offence”. Column 3 lists the sections. Nothing else in the memo speaks of the grounds. That tells the petitioner the offence for which he was arrested. It does not furnish the grounds, which are the facts and the material that led the officer to take this particular person into custody, and without which he cannot meet the request for remand or seek bail with any effect. In this case, as already seen, there was no such material to state. The remand report records that an intimation of arrest was written out from 08.45 hours, read over to the petitioner and signed by him. On the respondent's own description, it is an intimation of the arrest. The counter affidavit asserts, in paragraphs 13 and 15, that the petitioner was informed of the grounds of arrest at the time of arrest. It does not say that the grounds were furnished to him in writing, or when, and no such document has been placed before me.On the record as it stands, written grounds of arrest were not furnished to the petitioner, either at the time of his arrest or at least two hours before his production for remand. The arrest and the remand that followed are rendered illegal.

18. The illegality of the arrest is by itself sufficient to entitle the petitioner to be released. But the petitioner is charged with an offence involving a commercial quantity, and the recording of findings on the conditions in Section 37 of the Act is a sine qua non for the grant of bail as held in Narcotics Control Bureau v. Kashif, 2024 INSC 1045; State of Punjab v. Sukhwinder Singh @ Gora, 2026 INSC 411. I have therefore considered the application on the terms of that provision as well. The expression ‘reasonable grounds’ means something more than prima facie grounds; it contemplates substantial probable causes for believing that the accused is not guilty as held in the case State of Kerala v. Rajesh, (2020) 12 SCC 122. The whole of the material against the petitioner consists of statements that cannot be proved against him. There is no recovery from him, no recovery at his instance, and nothing independent of those statements. That furnishes substantial and probable cause for believing that he is not guilty of the offence alleged. As to the second condition, the petitioner has no previous case, and the counter affidavit alleges none. The description of him as an absconding accused sits uneasily with the fact that he was found standing outside his own house, and the apprehensions in paragraphs 16 and 17 of the counter affidavit are stated in general terms, without a single particular in support. The Public Prosecutor has been given an opportunity to oppose this application and has opposed it. I am satisfied that there are reasonable grounds for believing that the petitioner is not guilty of the offence alleged and that he is not likely to commit any offence while on bail.

19. Two features of the papers call for notice. The tabular statement at the head of the counter affidavit describes the stage of the case as “Under Investigation”, while paragraph 9 of the same affidavit records that the final report was taken on file on 15.08.2026; and paragraph 17 apprehends that the petitioner, if released, would hamper “the investigation proceedings”. The remand report, for its part, records that the petitioner, from whom nothing was recovered, was asked whether he had permission to keep methamphetamine and ganja, and that they answered that they had no such permission. Passages of this kind, carried over from a form or from the papers of another accused, detract from the credit of the documents in which they appear. The Inspector of Police, P6 Kodungaiyur Police Station, shall take note and ensure that counter affidavits and remand reports are prepared with reference to the facts of the particular case and of the particular accused.

20. Accordingly, this petition is allowed. The petitioner is ordered to be released on bail on his executing a bond for a sum of Rs.25,000/- (Rupees Twenty Five Thousand only) with two sureties, for a like sum to the satisfaction of the Principal Special Court, Under EC & NDPS Act cases at Chennai , and on further conditions that:

[a] the sureties shall affix his photographs and Left Thumb Impression in the Application for Surety ship [Judicial Form No.46 annexed to 'The Criminal Rules of Practice, 2019']. The learned Magistrate shall obtain a copy of any one of the identity proofs to ensure his identity;

(b) the petitioner shall report before the respondent police daily at 10.30 a.m. until further orders.

[c] the petitioner shall not abscond either during investigation or trial;

[d] the petitioner shall not tamper with the evidence or witness either during investigation or trial;

[e] On breach of any of the aforementioned conditions, the learned Magistrate/Trial Court is entitled to pass appropriate orders against the petitioner in accordance with law as if the aforementioned conditions have been imposed and the petitioner released on bail by the learned Magistrate/Trial Court himself as laid down by the Hon'ble Supreme Court in P.K. Shaji vs. State of Kerala [(2005)13 SCC 283];

[f] If the accused thereafter absconds, a fresh FIR can be registered under Section 269 of B.N.S.S.