Dr. Rajinder Rajan v. Union of India: Mihir Shah grounds-of-arrest discipline reaches NDPS

The facts in brief

The two appellants were medical professionals running a hospital in Amritsar. Their pharmacy desk placed an order with a pharmaceutical supplier for 200 Tramadol tablets — a Schedule H1 psychotropic substance lawfully stocked for legitimate patient care. By supplier error, the consignment that arrived contained 2,000 tablets. The hospital kept the entire consignment sealed and sent a letter to the supplier requesting collection of the excess 1,800 tablets.

Notwithstanding the pending clarification, the NDPS authorities registered a case under sections 8(c), 22 and 29 of the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act 1985 and arrested the two doctors. The arrest memo recited that the grounds of arrest had been "explained" orally to the accused. No written grounds were furnished prior to production before the Magistrate. The trial court remanded the appellants; the Punjab & Haryana High Court declined bail, applying the conventional section 37 NDPS analysis.

The appellants moved the Supreme Court, principally on the ground that the arrest violated Mihir Rajesh Shah v. State of Maharashtra (2026) 1 SCC 500 — the judgment of the Supreme Court delivered on 16 January 2026 that fortified the Article 22(1) discipline first laid down in Pankaj Bansal v. Union of India (2024) 7 SCC 576 and Prabir Purkayastha v. State (NCT of Delhi) (2024) 8 SCC 254. The appeal came before Justice Vikram Nath and Justice Sandeep Mehta, who on 1 April 2026 allowed it, declared the arrest non-compliant and granted bail.

The constitutional question

The question was whether the section 37 NDPS twin-test — which generally bars bail unless the Court is satisfied that there are reasonable grounds for believing that the accused is not guilty and is not likely to commit an offence on bail — operates as an absolute statutory bar that displaces the constitutional ground-of-arrest discipline, or whether Article 22(1) maintains independent footing even within special-statute regimes.

A subsidiary question was whether oral explanation, recorded by way of a template recital in an arrest memo, satisfies the Article 22(1) requirement — or whether written communication is constitutionally indispensable.

What the Court held

Written grounds of arrest are constitutionally mandatory

The bench held that the requirement of written grounds of arrest is rooted in Article 22(1) read with Article 21 and operates as a non-derogable constitutional safeguard.

The Court read the Mihir Shah framework as having operationalised this mandate into a workable rule: written grounds must be supplied to the accused at least two hours before production before the Magistrate. The two-hour window is not a courtesy — it is the constitutional minimum that enables the accused to consult counsel and prepare for the remand hearing.

Article 22(1) is not displaced by section 37 NDPS

The Court rejected the argument that the NDPS bail bar under section 37 operates to displace the Article 22(1) discipline. The two operate on distinct planes. Section 37 governs the merits of a bail application once it is properly before the Court. Article 22(1) governs the legality of the arrest itself. A failure of Article 22(1) compliance renders the arrest illegal regardless of the strength or weakness of the case against the accused on the merits.

The reasoning harmonises Mihir Shah with the Pankaj Bansal and Prabir Purkayastha line. In Pankaj Bansal the Court had laid down the written-grounds requirement in PMLA arrests. In Prabir Purkayastha the Court had applied it to UAPA arrests. Mihir Shah generalised the principle. Rajinder Rajan is the first concrete application to NDPS — and signals that the gating principle is now uniform across all special-statute regimes.

Template "explained orally" recitals do not survive scrutiny

The Court examined the arrest memo in the present case and found it to be a template recital — the kind of boilerplate language that arresting authorities had been using to paper over non-compliance with the written-grounds rule. The Court held that oral explanation, however dutifully recorded, does not substitute for the constitutional requirement of written communication.

The reasoning is doctrinal: the purpose of the written-grounds rule is to enable the accused to know the specific case against him, to consult counsel meaningfully, and to challenge the remand on informed grounds. None of these purposes is served by an oral recitation that the accused has no record of and may not even have understood in the moment of arrest.

The sympathetic factual matrix anchors the rule

The Court was conscious that the legal rule it was applying would be cited routinely in NDPS bail litigation, where the underlying offences are often serious. The factually sympathetic posture of the present case — pharmacists with a documented legitimate-supply trail, an excess consignment they themselves flagged, no concealment, no intention to traffic — provided a durable anchor for the doctrine. The judgment will be cited as the workable example of how Mihir Shah operates in practice, even in cases where the underlying alleged conduct is far less sympathetic.

The doctrinal architecture

Rajinder Rajan completes a four-judgment arc that has rebuilt the Article 22(1) discipline as a working constitutional safeguard.

First, Pankaj Bansal v. Union of India (2024) 7 SCC 576 established the written-grounds requirement in the PMLA context, where the Enforcement Directorate's arrest practices had been particularly opaque. Second, Prabir Purkayastha v. State (NCT of Delhi) (2024) 8 SCC 254 extended the principle to UAPA arrests, where the bail framework under section 43D(5) had been treated as functionally absolute. Third, Mihir Rajesh Shah v. State of Maharashtra (2026) 1 SCC 500, delivered on 16 January 2026, fortified the rule by laying down the two-hour-before-remand timeline and explicitly rejecting oral-explanation defences. Fourth, Rajinder Rajan now applies the consolidated framework to NDPS — closing the special-statute trilogy of PMLA, UAPA and NDPS.

The doctrinal architecture is now stable. Article 22(1) is a substantive constitutional safeguard, not a procedural courtesy. Written grounds of arrest must be furnished within the two-hour window. Oral explanation does not substitute. The arrest, if non-compliant, is illegal — and illegality flows through to the remand and to subsequent bail proceedings, irrespective of what statutory bail bar applies on the merits.

What the judgment did not decide

The judgment did not address the precise computation of the two-hour window — whether it runs in calendar time or whether it accommodates working hours, weekends and holidays. Trial courts will need to develop a workable convention.

It did not address the form of the written communication — whether a single document is required or whether cumulative annexures (FIR copy, panchnama, statement of allegations) may collectively satisfy the rule. Different High Courts may take different views before the question reaches the Supreme Court again.

It did not address the consequences of partial compliance — for example, a case where written grounds are furnished but not within the two-hour window, or where they are furnished but in a language the accused does not understand. The bail-or-no-bail dichotomy may need a more graduated remedy for such cases.

It did not address retrospectivity. Arrests effected before 16 January 2026 (the date of Mihir Shah) and before 1 April 2026 (Rajinder Rajan) are not addressed; the question of whether non-compliant pre-2026 arrests are open to challenge on Article 22(1) grounds remains live.

After the judgment

The judgment will be cited routinely in bail applications across NDPS, PMLA, UAPA and other special-statute prosecutions. Investigative agencies — the Narcotics Control Bureau, the Enforcement Directorate, the National Investigation Agency, and State special-cell wings — will need to overhaul arrest-memo templates to include actual written grounds of arrest furnished within the two-hour window.

Trial courts will need to insist on the production of written grounds at the remand stage as part of their constitutional duty, not as a discretionary courtesy. Expect the next 12 months to see appellate decisions on the calendar-versus-working computation of the two-hour window and on the form of the written communication. Expect a wave of pending NDPS bail applications relying on Mihir Shah / Rajinder Rajan as the primary ground.

The judgment also signals a broader truth about the Supreme Court's posture in 2026: the Court is unwilling to allow the rigour of special-statute bail bars to dilute the constitutional grounds-of-arrest discipline. Article 22(1) has been re-centred as a substantive constitutional protection, and the message to arresting authorities is unambiguous — comply with the written-grounds rule, or face having the arrest declared illegal and the accused released regardless of the strength of the case.

Related on Valkya

• Pankaj Bansal v. Union of India: written grounds of arrest under PMLA
• Prabir Purkayastha v. State (NCT of Delhi): UAPA grounds-of-arrest discipline
• Mihir Rajesh Shah v. State of Maharashtra: the two-hour rule consolidated
• Section 37 NDPS twin-test and constitutional safeguards

Sources

1. LiveLaw — Dr. Rajinder Rajan v. Union of India case page (2026 LiveLaw SC 327): https://www.livelaw.in/sc-judgments/2026-livelaw-sc-327-dr-rajinder-rajan-versus-union-of-india-anr-529025
2. LiveLaw — Supreme Court grants bail in NDPS case for non-supply of grounds of arrest in writing: https://www.livelaw.in/top-stories/supreme-court-grants-bail-ndps-case-tramadol-tablets-seizure-non-supply-of-grounds-of-arrest-in-writing-529024
3. LiveLaw — judgment PDF (2026 LiveLaw SC 327): https://www.livelaw.in/pdf_upload/2026/05/03/2026-livelaw-sc-327-dr-rajinder-rajan-v-union-of-india-1-apr-2026-671400.pdf
4. Supreme Court of India — official website: https://www.sci.gov.in/