MUMBAI: A special NDPS court on Thursday granted the NCB’s SIT an additional 60 days to submit the chargesheet in the cruise ship drug bust case. The investigating agency had moved the plea on Monday, as the stipulated period of 180 days since the first arrest made on October 3, was coming to an end today.
Section 36A (4) of the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act states that if it is not possible to complete investigations within 180 days for certain offences, including those involving commercial quantities of drugs, the special court may give time up to one year. It has to be done depending on the prosecution’s report indicating the progress in investigation and specific reasons for detention of the accused beyond 180 days.
Aryan Khan (26), son of actor Shah Rukh Khan, is among the 20 accused.
Last November, the SIT took over the probe from the Mumbai unit of the NCB, then headed by Sameer Wankhede. Wankhede’s family later became embroiled in a war of words with minister Nawab Malik and a case is on in this regard in the high court.
While seeking the extension, special public prosecutor Advait M Sethna submitted that there were compelling grounds to grant the extension. Sethna said that chemical analysis reports of all the 17 samples of substances allegedly recovered during the investigations proved that they were narcotics.
The investigating agency in its plea also cited pandemic related delays and claimed that during the recording of their voluntary statement some of the accused were “exercising their right to remain silent and not cooperating” and gave wrong passwords for their electronic devices, hence progress in the probe was delayed. The agency also said that the statements of 69 witnesses were recorded and those of 15 key suspects were yet to be recorded.
Aryan is out on bail. The only two accused currently in custody, Abdul Kadar and Chinedu Igwe, were produced before the court.
