Kolkata, The Calcutta High Court on Monday granted bail to a medicine shop owner, who was arrested for storing large quantities of cough syrup, noting that the West Bengal government could not produce any circular that deters any wholesaler or retailer from storage of such material.
The court noted that the State of Uttar Pradesh has a ceiling on the amount of codeine-based cough syrup that can be stored in a medicine shop at any given time, but no such document could be produced by the West Bengal government’s lawyer before the court in this matter.
Granting bail to the medicine shop owner, Justice Tirthankar Ghosh observed that the state has only made out a case of seizure of contraband, i.e., cough syrup and Tramadol mixture, in violation of the NDPS Act, but no case has been made out that such substances which have been seized were not for medicinal or scientific purposes.
The court noted that, as per the prosecution, the petitioner was arrested in April 2025 following alleged recovery of 158.8 litres of codeine-mixed cough syrup and two packets of Tramadol mixture capsules and that on demand, he failed to produce any documents in support of the same.
Justice Ghosh observed that the state has been unable to show that there is any ceiling limit in West Bengal for a medicine shop to store any quantity of that particular type of cough syrup.
He said that on an inspection of the available laws, the court found that in Uttar Pradesh, the Food Safety and Drug Administration department has issued an office order for sale of such substances.
He noted that UP’s FSDA department also imposed a maximum limit of codeine-based cough syrup which can be stored to 1,000 bottles of 100-ml each for wholesale medicine shops and for retailers, the limit is of 100 bottles of 100 ml each to be stored at any given time.
“The State of West Bengal could not produce any office order, notification, circular which deter any wholesaler or retailer from storage of such material which is cough syrup or any codeine based cough syrup,” the court observed.
Justice Ghosh said that there are provisions under the NDPS Act which do not restrict invoking the relevant laws in respect of offenders who under the garb of having license carry out illegal activity.
“But in order to make out a case under the NDPS Act, the prosecution should have materials to show illegal procurement, illegal sale, no entry in the register or non-maintenance of accounts in respect of such contraband,” the court observed.
Praying for his bail, petitioner Vijay Prakash Goel’s lawyer claimed that he was illegally detained on the accusation of having committed offences under provisions of the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act, 1985.
It was claimed that the petitioner owned a medicine shop in Howrah and was carrying out business with valid license from appropriate authorities.
Opposing the bail prayer, the state’s lawyer submitted that a huge quantity of codeine mixture/cough syrup was recovered along with Tramadol mixture tablets and that the police had adhered to the provisions of law in arresting the accused.
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