The Gwalior bench of Madhya Pradesh High Court has directed the State's Director General of Police (DGP) to pay Rs 10 lakh compensation to a youth who was falsely booked and kept in custody for eight months for possession of what the police claimed was party drug MDMA – commonly known as Ecstasy or Molly.
The Court, on the basis of a forensic report from the Bhopal laboratory, found that the samples of the material seized from the accused and other co-accused was not MDMA but Urea, normally used as fertilizer and feed supplement. The court also granted bail to the youth Mohit Tiwari.
In an order on Friday, The bench led by Judge Deepak Kumar Agrawal said that the DGP was “free to recover the aforesaid amount (of compensation) from the erring (police) officials” and also directed the police chief to “instruct its subordinate officers not to repeat such irregularity in future.”
Hearing the bail plea of Mohit Tiwari, a 26-year-old from Datia, the Court directed the state police chief to pay the compensation within two months and file a compliance report with the Court. Tiwari was arrested along with six others, including a female, by the Morar police of Gwalior on September 6, 2022, for alleged possession of illegal drugs claimed to be MDMA (3, 4-Methylenedioxymethamphetamine). All seven accused were booked under the Narcotic-Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act.
The Gwalior police had claimed to have seized a total of 760 grams of the illegal drug from the seven accused and also publicized that this was the first time the high-end party drug had been recovered in Gwalior, and the links of the drug racket spread to neighbouring Uttar Pradesh.
During the bail hearing, however, Tiwari’s lawyer Susheel Goswami claimed that Tiwari was falsely implicated in the case and aside from two months of interim bail, he had been in custody for the past eight months.
The bench sought a forensic report of the alleged illegal drugs recovered from the accused. However, the report of the Central Forensic Science Laboratory, Bhopal presented in the court, showed that none of the samples collected from the accused showed the presence of MDMA. Rather the samples showed the presence of Urea.
“The counsel for the State opposed the prayer, however, when this court asked as to whether Urea comes under NDPS Act, then he fairly replied that Urea does not come under NDPS Act,” the order said. Observing this, the court allowed the release of Mohit Tiwari on bail on presentation of personal bond of just Rs 500 and without any surety to the trial court.
However, the court went further and said, “It is observed that in the present case the applicant is behind bars since 6.9.2022 because of a wrongful act of the police agency. Thus, his right to personal liberty as guaranteed by Article 21 of the Constitution has been violated because of a wrongful act of the police agency. In this situation, this Court is of the considered opinion that a sum of Rs 10 lakh should be given to the applicant as a compensation for his wrongful confinement. Looking at the aforesaid facts and circumstances of the case, the Director General of Police is directed to pay a sum of Rs 10 lakhs to the applicant by way of compensation for his wrongful confinement within a period of two months from today and compliance report to this effect be submitted in the Registry.”
