Nurul Hasan Khan Vs Union of India (Patna High Court)
Patna High Court held that since owner of the crane was not an accused in NDPS case, thus auction of his crane without any notice and without providing opportunity of being heard is unlawful. Accordingly, criminal writ petition is allowed.
Facts- This criminal writ application has been filed for a direction upon the respondent authorities to pay appropriate compensation to the petitioner for arbitrarily and illegally disposing/selling of the crane of the petitioner. According to the petitioner, the action of the respondent authorities in illegally disposing / selling of the said crane was in complete violation of the provisions of the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act, 1985 as well as the settled principle of law.
Conclusion- Held that since the petitioner was not an accused in the N.D.P.S. case, it was the duty of the prosecuting agency to bring this fact to the notice of the trial court that the owner of the crane in question was not before it while the court was considering the application for pre-trial disposal of the crane of the petitioner and therefore, the order dated 03.08.2019 ought not to have been passed without hearing the petitioner who is the bona fide owner of the crane in question. Thus, I am of the considered view that the order dated 03.08.2019 passed in Special Case No.59 of 2019, by which the crane of the petitioner was auction sold, is bad in law and therefore, it is unsustainable. However, since the crane of the petitioner has already been auction sold, which is irreversible at this belated stage, this Court deems it appropriate to compensate the petitioner in view of unlawful auction of his crane.
