The issue before the top court came up in a case challenging an order from the Delhi High Court where a single-judge had refused to accept the argument that the accused would be entitled to default in case the charge sheet is filed without an FSL report.
During the hearing of the petition on March 19, the Supreme Court bench of Justices Bose and Justice Kumar took note of two conflicting orders of the Supreme Court.
While in one of them, an NDPS Act accused had been granted interim bail, a co-ordinate bench in the other judgment had held that pendency of some documents at the time of filing of chargesheet would not entitle the accused to claim default bail on the ground that the chargesheet was incomplete
The Court also noted that similar questions of law was pending before a larger bench. Accordingly, it referred this matter also for a larger bench decision.
“Let this case be placed before the Hon’ble the Chief Justice of India for considering tagging this matter with SLP(Crl.) No. 5724 of 2023,” it ordered.
Source: Barandbench
