Ahmedabad: The Gujarat high court on Friday granted bail to a third accused person, Harpreet Singh Talwar alias Kabir Talwar, in connection with the 2,988-kg heroin haul at Mundra port by Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) officials in Sep 2021.The HC granted bail after all of the 23 sensitive witnesses relevant with regard to Talwar’s role in the case were examined, said his advocate Darshit Raval. Before this, the HC granted bail to two other accused: Ishwar Singh, who turned an approver for the National Investigation Agency (NIA); and the only woman accused in this case, Durga Purna Govindaraju Vaishali, who is a co-owner of Aashi Trading Company, which allegedly was behind the import of the contraband from Afghanistan through Bandar Abbas port of Iran to Mundra. Heroin was mixed with talc powder. The probe agency filed multiple chargesheets in this case against many persons, and Talwar was named as accused No. 24. He was behind bars since 2022. He was seeking bail on the grounds of the possible delay in the trial because the chargesheet ran into over 20,000 pages, and more than 500 persons were cited as witnesses. When the issue of the accused’s bail reached the Supreme Court, a timeline was stipulated for completing the deposition of prosecution witnesses. However, nearly a year has passed since the deadline was extended, and very few witnesses have been examined before the trial court. While granting bail to Talwar, Justice N S Sanjay Gowday and Justice D M Vyas said, “…the last of the 23 witnesses has also been completed and therefore all the witnesses who were considered as sensitive or material in so far as the appellant is concerned have been completed. In other words, all the evidence that the NIA wished to adduce against the appellant has come on record…and the appellant would not be in a position to do any act which can undermine the trial.” While ordering the trial court to impose appropriate bail conditions, the HC said that considering the number of witnesses, the trial might not get over soon. “The need to keep the appellant in custody till the examination of all the other witnesses would be unfair to the appellant, more so, when all the evidence that the NIA wanted to adduce against him has already come on record.”
