The Delhi High Court has granted bail to a South African national arrested in 2021 on charges of drug trafficking, citing serious lapses in the handling of seized material, including the mixing of substances prior to testing.
Justice Arun Monga, while granting bail to Quentin Deacon, observed that the procedure followed by the investigators created uncertainty about the nature and quantity of the recovered contraband. “There is doubt on the proof of the tested samples, which were represented as a commercial quantity on the whole,” the court said in its order passed last month.
The judge noted that the Investigating Officer himself admitted during cross-examination that the seized substance was mixed before being sent for forensic analysis. This, the court said, made it impossible to ascertain which sample belonged to which packet or their respective weights.
Deacon, who was arrested on June 27, 2021, has spent more than four years in custody. The charge sheet was filed in December 2021, but the trial has moved slowly, with only six out of 14 prosecution witnesses examined so far. Justice Monga remarked that the trial is likely to take a “substantial time,” reinforcing the need for bail.
According to the prosecution, the Customs department had seized heroin from Deacon upon his arrival in India in June 2021. Officials claimed that the total material weighed 10,500 grams, including one packet of around 10,000 grams and a plastic container weighing about 480 grams.
However, the High Court’s observations on procedural lapses in sampling cast doubt on the prosecution’s case regarding whether the recovered substance could conclusively be termed a “commercial quantity” under the law.
Taking into account both the questionable handling of evidence and the prolonged incarceration of the accused without conclusion of trial, the High Court directed Deacon’s release on bail.
