Supreme Court cancels NDPS bail after accused absconds on fake sureties
Justice Sanjay Karol’s bench cancelled bail to a Nigerian accused who jumped bail on forged sureties, invoking Article 142 to frame a bail bondsperson regime.
What began as a routine appeal against grant of bail turned into an examination of how criminal courts accept sureties. The Union of India challenged bail granted to Chidiebere Kingsley Nawchara, a Nigerian national, in a case registered by the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act, 1985. When the Supreme Court directed his arrest, he could not be traced. The surety furnished on his behalf was found to be fictitious — a fake address, a non-existent employer, a forged PAN and Aadhaar, and a bank account that did not exist. Justice Sanjay Karol, writing the judgment, held that the appeal was no longer about grant of bail but about its cancellation, and cancelled the bail. The Court then examined the wider problem of impersonation by sureties.
How the dispute reached the Court
Nawchara was arrested on 16 March 2023 in connection with 4935 grams of heroin recovered from Damodar Surya Rama Prasad Dubey, apprehended at Mumbai airport on his return from Addis Ababa. According to the chargesheet, the consignment was to be delivered to Nawchara through Hekatoli Sumi, whose statement led to his arrest. The chargesheet in NDPS Spl. Case No. 1449 of 2023 was filed on 6 September 2023.
The Special Judge for NDPS Cases at Greater Mumbai rejected bail on 12 September 2024, recording that he was alleged to be the mastermind, was a habitual offender already convicted by the Patiala House Court, New Delhi in an earlier NDPS case, and was a member of an international trafficking syndicate. A later regular bail application was, however, allowed by the High Court of Judicature at Bombay.
Why the bail order was found deficient
The Court found that the impugned bail order relied on the absence of recovery from Nawchara and on Tofan Singh v. State of Tamil Nadu to hold him entitled to bail. The bench held that the twin conditions under Section 37 of the NDPS Act require both that there are reasonable grounds for believing the accused is not guilty and that he is not likely to commit any offence while on bail. The High Court’s order discussed neither.
Justice Karol noted that the earlier conviction in the Patiala House case brought Section 31A into play, which prescribes the death penalty for certain offences after a previous conviction, with heroin triggering the threshold at one kilogram. Given roughly five kilograms of heroin, the Court observed that a death sentence was a real probability. Because capital punishment was in play, the protection of Section 436A of the CrPC and Section 479 of the BNSS did not apply.
The Court had stayed the bail order on 19 September 2025 and directed the Director-General of Police, Maharashtra, to arrest him. Despite a look-out notice, he could not be arrested. The bench held he had jumped bail, and that the appeal had become a proceeding for cancellation because the conditions of bail had been violated.
The fake surety and the wider inquiry
An affidavit by the Deputy Director, DRI, Mumbai Zonal Unit, dated 13 November 2025, showed that the surety, Sushil Balkrushna Jadhav, had furnished a non-existent address; his declared employer, M/s Emkay Global Financial Services Ltd., stated no such person was ever employed there; the IDBI Bank branch confirmed no such account existed; and his PAN and Aadhaar were forged.
The Additional Solicitor General informed the Court that in at least 38 cases investigated by the Narcotics Control Bureau and 9 by the DRI, foreign nationals, particularly from Nigeria and Nepal, had absconded after furnishing sureties that may be fake. The Court impleaded the Unique Identification Authority of India, appointed Mr Sidharth Luthra as amicus curiae, and called for a report from the trial judge on how the surety in this case was accepted.
The report of the Special Judge (NDPS) dated 21 November 2025 stated that Jadhav was produced and identified by an advocate, that he claimed to know the accused for six years, and that the City Civil and Sessions Court, Greater Mumbai has a dedicated department for verification of sureties. The forgery came to light only after the bail order was stayed.
Comparative material and Article 142
The Court gathered surety verification procedures from States and Union Territories and set out comparative practices from the United States, Canada, and Singapore. It recalled that a bench in 2021 had taken judicial notice of rampant impersonation of sureties, leading to Suo Moto Writ Petition (Crl) No. 1 of 2021, which had remained pending. The judgment records the Court’s power to issue directions under Article 142 and, in the annexed material, sets out draft Professional Bail Bondsperson (Regulation) Rules, 2026, including licensing, a Unique Surety License Number, a National Digital Surety Registry maintained by the National Legal Services Authority, and special provisions requiring FRRO registration and passport deposit for foreign nationals.
Order
The Court held that both twin conditions under Section 37 must be satisfied, not either, and that the impugned order recorded neither the material warranting conviction nor the likelihood of the accused not reoffending. Having stayed the bail order on 19 September 2025 and finding the accused absconding despite a look-out notice, the bench held: “he jumped the bail.” The bail granted under the impugned order stands cancelled.