On the arrest of YouTuber and Bigg Boss OTT 2 winner Elvish Yadav, DCP Noida Vidya Sagar Mishra says, “A case under Wild Life Protection Act-1972, was filed (against Elvish Yadav and others). Today he was called for interrogation and was produced before the court by enhancing the sections of the NDPS Act in the said case.”
Tag: NDPS Act
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Punjab and Haryana HC dismisses bail plea of SAD leader Bikram Singh Majithia in drugs case
By PTI
CHANDIGARH The Punjab and Haryana High Court on Monday dismissed the anticipatory bail plea of Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) leader Bikram Singh Majithia, who has been booked under the NDPS Act. Majithia’s counsel Asrhdeep Singh Cheema said the court of Justice Lisa Gill dismissed the anticipatory bail plea.
Cheema said that the high court was requested to extend the interim protection for seven days for moving the Supreme Court. However, the counsel said the detailed order is awaited. The court orders came following the hearing of arguments of both sides.
The court on January 10 had granted interim protection to Majithia from the arrest in the matter while directing him to join the investigation on January 12. It had also imposed some conditions, including not leaving the country, on the Akali leader.
The court had extended the interim protection on January 18. Majithia (46), who was booked under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act on December 20 last year, had moved the high court seeking anticipatory bail.
His anticipatory bail plea was rejected by a Mohali court on December 24. Majithia is the brother-in-law of Sukhbir Badal and the brother of former Union minister Harsimrat Kaur Badal. The former Punjab minister was booked under the NDPS Act on the basis of a 2018 report of a probe into a drugs racket operating in the state.
The report was filed by the anti-drug special task force (STF) chief Harpreet Singh Sidhu in the Punjab and Haryana High Court in 2018. The 49-page FIR in the matter was registered by the state Crime Branch at its Mohali police station.
Majithia was booked under sections 25 (punishment for allowing one’s premises for its use for the commission of an offence), 27A (for financing sale, purchase, production, manufacture, possession, transportation, use or consumption, import and export or any act pertaining to narcotics) and 29 (abetting or plotting an offence) of the NDPS Act.
In his bail plea, the SAD leader had submitted that the Congress government in Punjab had “left no stone unturned to misuse its powers and position for wreaking vengeance upon its political opponents”.
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No evidence against Aryan Khan, WhatsApp chats not objectionable: Bombay HC on cruise drugs case
By Express News Service
MUMBAI: There is no evidence of any conspiracy between Aryan Khan, Arbaaz Merchant and Munmun Dhamecha to commit drug-related offences and there is also nothing objectionable in the WhatsApp conversations between them, the Bombay High Court said in its bail order released on Saturday.
The high court uploaded the detailed bail order in the drug case and stated that the trio did not conspire to commit the offence under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act. The court on October 28 had granted bail to all the three accused.
“Prima facie there is no evidence against Aryan Khan and the other two accused. The court also rejects the hatching the conspiracy plan claimed by the NCB by this trio,” the order stated.
The court rejected the NCB’s argument that since Section 29 of the NDPS Act pertaining to conspiracy was applicable, rigours for bail under Section 37 of the NDPS Act would apply and the cumulative quantity recovered should be considered.
The court noted that no drug was found in Aryan’s possession while the quantity recovered from Arbaz and Munmun were “small” quantities under the NDPS Act. In such a scenario, in order to invoke offence of conspiracy against the accused, there has to be positive evidence about an agreement to do an unlawful act or to do lawful act by unlawful means and such agreement must precede with meeting of minds, the court said.
But there was no such material in the instant case, the court held. As per the presented material, it showed that Aryan and Arbaz were travelling together while Munmum had an independent travel plan. The court observed that merely because Aryan Khan, Arbaaz Merchant and Munmun Dhamecha were travelling in the same cruise, that by itself cannot be a foundation for the charge of conspiracy.
The accused were not even subject to a medical examination to determine whether at relevant time they had consumed drugs. The court also stated that the confession statement of the accused presented by the NCB could not be cited as evidence considering the Supreme Court observations in the Tofan Singh versus State of Tamil Nadu.
Therefore, the NCB claim of the accused admitting their crime must be rejected. Aryan was taken into custody by the NCB on October 2 after the agency raided a cruise ship en route to Goa from Mumbai. He was arrested from the terminal to the cruise.
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Cruise ship raid case: Court grants bail to another accused Mohak Jaiswal in drugs case
By PTI
MUMBAI: A special court here on Friday granted bail to Mohak Jaiswal, who was arrested by the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) in the drugs-on-cruise case in which Bollywood actor Shah Rukh Khan’s son Aryan is one of the accused.
VV Patil, special judge for cases under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act cases, allowed Jaiswal’s plea after hearing extensive arguments. Jaiswal was one of the seven persons including Aryan Khan whom the NCB had apprehended on October 2 before boarding the cruise ship.
They were later arrested under relevant provisions of the NDPS Act, including section 27A which deals with `financing’ of drug trafficking. The NCB had claimed that WhatsApp chats showed a nexus between Jaiswal and other accused with drug suppliers and peddlers.
The bail plea said that Jaiswal was completely innocent, there was no evidence against him and the central agency has not attributed any “direct role” to him in the alleged crime. As many as 20 persons were arrested in the case, of which 12 have been granted bail by the special NDPS court while the Bombay High Court has granted bail to three others including Aryan Khan so far.
Based on a tip-off, an NCB team raided Goa-bound Cordelia cruise off the Mumbai coast on the evening of October 2 and allegedly seized drugs.
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3 Assam Rifles jawans held for drug trafficking, contraband worth Rs 1 crore seized
Express News Service
GUWAHATI: The Assam Police arrested three Assam Rifles personnel and a civilian for trafficking drugs.
The arrests were made at Jokai near Dibrugarh in upper Assam based on inputs shared by the Army intelligence. The three defence personnel are posted in Nagaland’s Kohima.
The seized drugs, weighing 269 grams, were valued at Rs 1 crore in the international black market.
Dibrugarh SP Shwetank Mishra said the police had received inputs on Thursday that some people were travelling to Tinsukia in a car from Jorhat for drug dealing.
“We activated a police team and it intercepted the vehicle. Four persons were travelling. Their interrogation revealed they were travelling for the drugs trade. They confessed that they left the drugs in another vehicle at Dergaon (in Golaghat district). A team was sent. It seized the vehicle and the drugs this morning,” Mishra said.
The accused told their interrogators they had procured the drugs from a woman in Nagaland’s commercial hub Dimapur. The contraband was to be delivered to a drugs dealer in Tinsukia, the SP added.
The police registered a case under sections 22(c)/27A/29 of the NDPS Act.
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In a first, Punjab govt to bring in ‘Comprehensive Action Against Drug Abuse Act’
Express News Service
CHANDIGARH: In an effort to tackle the drug menace in the state, the Punjab government is mulling bringing in the Comprehensive Action Against Drug Abuse Act (CADA). Once passed, the Act will provide a legal framework for enforcement, treatment and prevention programs for drug abuse. It will also cover treatment and prevention aspects for alcohol and tobacco abuse disorders.The principal innovation in the proposed Act is to give a statutory basis to prevention and treatment programs such as the DAPO (Drug Abuse Prevention Officers) and buddy program. These initatives are aimed at having a legal foundation and supervision for community mobilisation efforts and prevention amongst students.
Drug treatment programs were earlier run through general nature rules made under the NDPS Act but this act provides a specific structure and a monitoring system. The Outpatient Opioid Assisted Treatment (OOAT), Drug Abuse Prevention Officers (DAPO) and buddy programs have already been touted as major achievements by the state government in a publicity campaign.
Sources clarified that there is no conflict with the main NDPS Act which prescribes punishments for various offences and that CADA only supplements the provisions of the NDPS to increase its effectiveness and improve the gains to the system. It makes officials and departments more accountable for implementation of the comprehensive action against drug abuse to the law and to the cabinet through a ministerial committee.
As per the proposed Act, a copy of which is available with the New Indian Express, it aims to provide a legal foundation for enforcement, treatment and prevention programs against abuse of narcotics, psychotropic substances, alcohol, tobacco and other intoxicants in Punjab. This act aims to effectively and efficiently control drug abuse and substance abuse disorders and to secure the health and safety of citizens by adopting appropriate measures matching best international practises.
Since it cannot be left to individual departments, a coordinated effort by 17 teams is needed. These teams will be brought under one ambit for implementing the strategy og CADA in an effective and time bound manner. The home department will be the nodal department to implement this act.
The proposed act further states that it will be mandatory for each of the 17 departments to make an overall action plan for its area of responsibility and get it approved. There will be annual assessment of the work done by each department and unit. The action plan shall take into account the types of drugs that are particularly abused in specific areas, measures to curtail them, ensure de-addiction treatment, recovery of drug users and prevention aspects. The responsibilities of each official will be fixed in theaction plan.
It will be the individual and collective responsibility of the officials for the implementation of the CADA strategy. Each department will give training to its officials to upgrade their knowledge and each official shall be individually responsible for the effective and efficient discharge of duties. If the officials are ineffective in controlling the drugs it will reflect in their Annual Appraisal Report (ACR), also legal action will be taken against officials if they fail to control drugs.
A policy of rotation shall be implemented for officers to prevent development of vested interests. Besides the government departments NGOs will also be involved.
The state government will constitute a fund for the control of drug abuse and to implement the strategy of CADA. There will be total transparency as the concerned head of department will upload expenditure, details of receipts every day on their portal
Under this act besides enforcement, prevention and treatment will also be done in a coordinated manner to streamline the system and fix accountability which will be placed before legislature. This act will supplement the NDPS Act which does not have provisions for prevention.
The act clearly states that there will be coordination between the Special Task Force (STF), district police and other units of the police department for enforcement of laws related to drug trafficking. Also anti-drug units will be established in each district which will be supervised by STF and intelligence sharing will be done. If one dies due to suspected drug overdose or injury, it will be mandatory to register a case. The police station shall be made responsible for implementation of anti-drug laws. The act also provides for the prevention of any illegal telephonic, electronic, or other means of communication that may directly or indirectly promote or sustain trafficking and organised crime by inmates in jails.
Under the act, Nasha Roko Nigran Committees (NRNC) will be formed for every village or mohalla or ward or locality to oversee the implementation of Drug AbusePrevention Officers (DAPO) program.
Hotspots shall be identified for reclamation and rejuvenation to be converted into citizen-friendly, crime-free areas by using a locally suitable and adaptable mix of development, crime prevention and community mobilisation interventions.
The state government shall establish an anti-drug abuse division in the health department for supervision, coordination, and effective enforcement of the NDPS Act and other laws. The government may establish treatment clinics to provide wider coverage and easier access. The government shall also establish tobacco abuse treatment clinics, centres and rehabilitation centres for the de-addiction treatment and alcohol abuse treatment clinics will be established. OOAT clinics have already been established.
“This draft legislation has been sent to the state government by the Special Task Force (STF) and the government is actively considering it,” a senior official said requesting anonymity.
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Army jawan held on charges of supplying heroin in Himachal
By PTI
SHIMLA: A 27-year-old Army jawan has been arrested on the charges of supplying heroin in Himachal Pradesh’s Kullu district, a police official said on Wednesday.Sandeep Kumar Rathi, a resident of Shekhupur Majri village in Haryana’s Gurgaon, was held with another man identified as Hemant after 69 gram of heroin were recovered from their possession on Tuesday, Kullu SP Gaurav Singh said.
The SP said the two men were coming to Kullu to supply heroin in a car, which has been impounded.
The duo was held in connection with a case registered on Monday under section 21 of the NDPS Act at Kullu police station after two locals Roma Devi (29) and Pradeep Kumar (22) had been arrested with 52 gram heroin.
During investigation, the names of the two men, including the Army jawan, surfaced and they were arrested on Tuesday, Singh said.
Further investigation into the matter is underway, he added.