In a curious twist involving a used car, a half-baked sale, and a load of ganja, the Delhi High Court recently bailed out a man who found himself dragged into a narcotics case—because the car used to ferry the drugs still happened to be in his name.
The man, Rahul, told the court that he had handed over the vehicle to someone else months earlier as part of an informal sale. No paperwork was filed with the transport authority, but signatures were exchanged. The car stayed in his name, but in his world, it was no longer his.
That didn’t stop the police from arresting him after Dhiraj—the man caught red-handed driving the Maruti Swift Dzire packed with ganja—claimed Rahul owned the car and knew exactly what it was being used for. Dhiraj’s word became the spark for Rahul’s arrest.
But Justice Sanjeev Narula wasn’t convinced.
Peering into Section 25 of the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act, which punishes those who knowingly allow their property to be used for drug trafficking, the judge zeroed in on a key word: knowledge. Without proof that Rahul had any, the link between man and crime remained speculative.
“The law doesn’t punish ignorance—it punishes complicity,” the Court observed, noting that the prosecution’s case hinged solely on the co-accused’s claim. No independent evidence, no surveillance, no transaction trail tying Rahul to the ganja run—just a name on paper and a bad assumption.
Rahul, the Court noted, had twice been denied bail by the trial court. But in light of the weak linkage, the High Court saw no reason to keep him behind bars while the case played out. It ruled that Rahul had shown reasonable grounds to believe he may not be guilty, and wasn’t a threat to commit any crime if released.
So, with no ganja in his pocket and no car in his driveway, Rahul walked out on bail—free, at least for now, from a charge he says belonged to someone else entirely.