The Supreme Court on Wednesday orally remarked that it usually maintains a "very liberal" approach when it comes to granting bail in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act (NDPS Act) cases involving Ganja (Marijuana) [Biswanath Mandal v. The State of West Bengal].

A Bench of Justices MM Sundresh and PB Varale made the remark while hearing an anticipatory bail plea by a man accused in a case involving the alleged recovery of a "huge quantity" of Ganja.

Dismissing the pre-arrest bail plea, the Bench suggested that the petitioner surrender and file for regular bail instead.

It indicated that even if his regular bail is later rejected by the lower courts, the Supreme Court may take a liberal approach and grant him relief.

"Come for bail, we’ll give you. See, when it comes to Ganja, we are very liberal. Whenever it comes to us, we grant bail. Get a dismissal [of regular bail plea from the trial court] and come here; we will give you bail, no problem," the Bench remarked.

The Court was hearing an appeal filed by one Biswanath Mandal, who had approached the top court challenging an order passed by the Calcutta High Court rejecting his anticipatory bail plea in an NDPS case.

The High Court had noted that a "huge quantity" of contraband was recovered from Mandal’s wife at a house where she resided. Though Mandal was not present during the raid, the High Court held that he could not shirk responsibility as the owner of the house, and ruled that the statutory bar under Section 37 of the NDPS Act precluded the grant of pre-arrest or anticipatory bail.

Before the Supreme Court, counsel appearing for Mandal submitted that there was an exception carved out under Section 37 regarding reasonable grounds when pre-arrest bail may be granted. He pointed out that the house in question did not even belong to Mandal.

"They want to fix you up, is it?" the Bench quipped in response.

"The house doesn’t belong to the petitioner," counsel reiterated.

"That is a matter of investigation. If you want, we’ll give you time to surrender, permit you to file a bail application," the Court stated.

When the counsel sought to rely on a prior ruling of the apex court to press the plea for anticipatory bail, the Bench was quick to brush it aside.

"That must be on the facts of that case," the Court observed, making it clear that it was not inclined to entertain a pre-arrest bail plea given the statutory restrictions under Section 37 of the NDPS Act.

The Court proceeded to dismissed the anticipatory bail plea. However, it orally assured the counsel Mandal is likely to get relief if he were to surrender and then file a plea for regular bail.