Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Monday asked enforcement agencies to go after 'big fish' involved in drug trafficking, saying they need to find who is sending 'mountains' of illegal drugs into the country.
In the 15-page order, the details of which were made available on Saturday, the ACMM said 'this court ceases its jurisdiction to entertain the applications for bail' considering section 36A and the fact that all three were held for one crime under various provisions of the NDPS Act for which the prescribed punishment was more than three years.
Aryan Khan was arrested on October 3. He is currently in judicial custody and lodged at the Arthur Road prison in Mumbai.
Panday was earlier questioned by the NCB for two days last week and was called again on Monday.
The clean chit to Aryan Khan and five others by the Narcotics Control Bureau on Friday has once again brought the central agency's former zonal director Sameer Wankhede under the spotlight.
In his appeal in the HC against the special court order, Aryan Khan said the Narcotics Control Bureau's "interpretation and misinterpretation" of the WhatsApp chats collected from his mobile phone was "wrong and unjustified".
Ananya Panday has been again called by the NCB on Monday, a senior NCB official said.
During the period of COVID-19 lockdown, no such actionable inputs were received by NCB revealing the nexus between people in the film industry and drug traffickers'
The commission said polling was held at 15,940 polling stations spread across 44 assembly constituencies in this phase of polls.
The NCB searched Singh's house and office in the morning as part of its probe into alleged drug use in the Hindi film industry.
Wankhede presented his version and official documents related to the raid, which took place in October last year at the international cruise terminal in Mumbai, before NCB deputy director general for the northern region Gyaneshwar Singh.
Ananya's father Chunky Panday accompanied her to the NCB office located at Ballard Estate in south Mumbai, where they reached around 4 pm.
With this, the anti-drugs agency has so far arrested 17 people in the case, including Bollywood superstar Shah Rukh Khan's son Aryan Khan, and some "high-profile organisers" belonging to a Delhi-based event management company.
The top court said that the amount of neutral substance in a mixture has to be included along with the actual weight of the banned substances for determining whether it is a 'small or commercial quantity' under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act.
In one of his statements before the NCB, Aryan Khan admitted that he started smoking ganja in the US in 2018 when he was doing graduation there, as per the chargesheet.
Nationalist Congress Party spokesperson and Maharashtra minister Nawab Malik on Saturday asked why the NCB's zonal director Sameer Wankhede used a "family friend" as an independent witness in three investigations.
Aryan, 23, was arrested by the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) on October 3 from the cruise ship off the Mumbai coast.
West Bengal police arrested Bharatiya Janata Party leader Rakesh Singh from Galsi in Purba Bardhaman district, about 130 km from Kolkata, on Tuesday night in connection with his alleged involvement in a drug seizure case, a senior officer said.
The witness has been provided protection by the Mumbai police in the wake of revelations he made in his application.
The Directorate of Revenue Intelligence has seized 205.6 kg heroin worth Rs 1,439 crore from a container near Kandla port in Gujarat and arrested an importer from Punjab in this connection following an extensive search operation, the DRI said on Monday.
Aryan Khan, son of Bollywood superstar Shah Rukh Khan, was on Thursday granted bail by the Bombay high court, 25 days after his arrest by the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) in the case of seizure of banned drugs aboard a cruise ship off the Mumbai coast earlier this month, a drugs bust that triggered a series of controversies and put the central agency and its officials under the spotlight.
The incident occurred ahead of the annual pilgrimage to the Amarnath cave shrine in south Kashmir Himalayas for which security has been tightened.
'We are also seeing the birth of new evil, the new face of drug distribution where human interface has reduced; consumers are using the Dark Web to source supplies and using cryptocurrencies as payment mode.'
On Saturday, an online marijuana sale racket was busted by Bhind police in Madhya Pradesh, leading to the arrest of two persons and seizure of 20 kilograms of the contraband, according to an official. The accused were operating the racket through a leading e-commerce firm, which received two-thirds of the profits generated, as per the official.
The disclosures will enjoy immunity from wealth tax, civil and other taxation laws but there will be no immunity from FEMA, PMLA, narcotics and black money laws.
The Bombay High Court on Wednesday rejected an application seeking pre-arrest bail filed by Samville D'Souza, whose name had cropped up in connection with allegations of pay-off in the case of drug seizure in which Aryan Khan, actor Shah Rukh Khan's son, was arrested.
if amount of cocaine is above two grams, the minimum punishment is ten years imprisonment, and maximum punishment is 20 years imprisonment.
The Narcotic Control Bureau, which had told the court on Wednesday that Khan was involved in the conspiracy, illicit drug trafficking as well as its procurement and consumption, today claimed that 'evidence reveal Khan frequently took contraband substances'.
Total of Rs 40 lakh cash and over 53,000 litres of illicit liquor was seized
"There is no evidence of consumption, no recovery of drugs and absolutely no evidence to show his participation in this so-called conspiracy and abetment as alleged by the NCB," Rohatgi said while arguing for Aryan Khan's bail.
Custody cannot be granted on vague grounds, noted a magistrate court on Thursday while rejecting the NCB's plea seeking further remand of Aryan Khan, son of Bollywood superstar Shah Rukh Khan, and seven others arrested in a case pertaining to alleged seizure of banned drugs aboard a cruise ship here.
The Bombay High Court on Friday said Aryan Khan, son of superstar Shah Rukh Khan, shall be released on a personal bond of Rs one lakh with one or two sureties of the same amount.
The boat was brought to the Jakhau coast in Kutch district of Gujarat for further investigation.
The NCB said all the allegations levelled against the agency in connection with the cruise ship raid and alleged recovery of drugs, in which Bollywood actor Shah Rukh Khan's son Aryan Khan was arrested, are 'baseless, motivated afterthoughts and prejudicial'.
BSF director general (DG) Pankaj Kumar Singh on Tuesday said that the "demographic balance" has been upset in border-states like Assam and West Bengal over a period of time and that was probably the reason that the Centre recently extended the force's jurisdiction.
Earlier, in September, authorities seized around 3,000 kg of the drug at the Mundra port in Gujarat's Kutch district.
The anti-drugs agency in its affidavit said attempts are being made to tamper with the ongoing investigation with a malafide intention to derail the probe into the case.
Prabhakar Sail, an independent witness in the cruise drugs seizure case, on Sunday claimed that a Narcotics Control Bureau officer and some other persons demanded Rs 25 crore from Bollywood superstar Shah Rukh Khan to release his son Aryan Khan in the case.
The actor had been caught with possession of cocaine in May 2001.
The Union government had recently amended the BSF Act to authorise the border guarding force to undertake search, seizure and arrest within a 50 km stretch, up from the existing 15 km, from the international border in Punjab, West Bengal and Assam.
