In a significant judgement, the Delhi High Court has ruled that the Narcotic Control Bureau (NCB), which deals with thousands of drug smuggling cases in the country, has no power to conduct any search or seizure and arrest a person in the absence of a legal sanction. Quashing a city sessions court order convicting a person to ten years rigorous imprisonment with a fine of Rs one lakh in a drug smuggling case, justice R S Sodhi on Wednesday said that the NCB was not a government department and no power was vested in it to conduct search or seizure and arrest anybody under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substance (NDPS) Act. Any investigation, recovery or proceedings taken by it (NCB) under the NDPS Act would be void ‘ab initio’ and cannot be relied upon as material for maintaining prosecution, the court observed.

The court said that the NCB cannot be termed as a department of the Central Government for it is an authority to provide assistance to foreign countries and international bodies to prevent and suppress illicit traffic in narcotic drugs and take measures in rehabilitation and social re-integration of addicts among other things. This legal question was addressed by the High Court while deciding an appeal against a city sessions court, which had on May 24, 1997 had convicted one Kulwant Singh for having in his possession 0.980 kg of heroin at the time of his arrest by NCB officials in April 1996 near a Gurudwara in New Delhi. Bureau Report