NIA Can Investigate Accused Who Commits Non-Scheduled Offence Having Connection With Scheduled Offence: Supreme Court

The Supreme Court held that the National Investigation Agency (NIA) can investigate the accused who commits a non-scheduled offence having a connection with a scheduled offence.

The Court held thus in a Special Leave Petition filed by the accused against the Order of the Punjab and Haryana High Court by which it cancelled the bail granted to him.

The two-Judge Bench comprising Justice B.V. Nagarathna and Justice N. Kotiswar Singh observed, “The connection between a Scheduled Offence and any other offence being established would enable the NIA to investigate the accused of committing any other offence which is connected with the Scheduled Offence. Once there is such a connection between a Scheduled Offence and a non-scheduled offence then, for all practical purposes the non-scheduled offence would come within the connection of a Scheduled Offence. Therefore, it is held that the accused who may have committed a non-scheduled offence having a connection with a Scheduled Offence can be investigated by the NIA in respect of a non-scheduled offence.”

The Bench emphasised that the nexus or connection between any other offence and the Scheduled Offence is of critical importance and must be present in order to enable the NIA to investigate any other offence committed by an accused in connection with the Scheduled Offence.

Senior Advocate Siddhartha Dave appeared on behalf of the Petitioner while ASG Aishwarya Bhati appeared on behalf of the Respondents.

Brief Facts -

The NIA had approached the High Court, seeking cancellation of bail granted to the Petitioner/accused in connection with an FIR registered under Sections 21, 25, 27A, 29, and 85 of the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act, 1985 (NDPS Act) and Sections 30, 53, and 59 of the Arms Act, 1959. The said FIR was registered against one Sukhbir Singh alias Happy and during the interrogation, the Petitioner’s name surfaced. It was stated that the car in which he had been caught, belonged to the Petitioner and the car was allegedly given for onward delivery to a special person. Resultantly, the Petitioner was arrested and thereafter, recovery of narcotic substance-heroin was made. The Applications for seeking regular bail were allowed by the High Court. Even prior to the registration of FIR, another case under Sections 8(c), 21(c), 24, 25, 27A, and 29 of the NDPS Act was already registered, involving a criminal conspiracy by the arrested accused.

The FIR was in relation to smuggling and distribution of 500 kgs of narcotics, being alleged to have been illicitly transported from Pakistan to Gujarat via the sea route. Pursuantly, the Ministry of Home Affairs, Government of India transferred the investigation to NIA. The NIA took custody of Sukhbir Singh from the NIA Special Court at Ahmedabad, Gujarat after being produced by the Amritsar jail authorities in pursuance of production warrants. During his custodial interrogation, he revealed the involvement of the Petitioner and his other close aides in the drugs syndicate involved in the transportation, storage, purification, delivery, and sale of drugs in Amritsar. The Petitioner moved an Application for grant of anticipatory bail before NIA Special Court but the same was dismissed. The High Court also dismissed his prayer. Consequently, the High Court allowed the NIA’s Application and cancelled the bail and being aggrieved, the Petitioner approached the Apex Court.

The Supreme Court in the above regard, noted, “… the question is whether, the NIA can investigate only the same accused who is present in the NIA investigation qua Scheduled Offences and for non-scheduled offence by virtue of Section 8 of the NIA Act. In other words, can the NIA investigate any other accused person who, although not being investigated for any Scheduled Offences could be investigated by NIA because there exists a link between the two namely, Scheduled and non-scheduled offences, thereby connecting every co-accused.”

The Court said that, if any other offence is connected with the Scheduled Offence, then the NIA may investigate such other offence which the accused is alleged to have committed, provided there is a connection of such other offence with the Scheduled Offence.

The Court, therefore, interpreted Section 8 of the NIA Act in such a way that while investigating the accused of a Scheduled Offence, any other accused could also be investigated on the strength of Section 8 and provided the following condition precedents that are applicable –

(i) the NIA is of the opinion that during an investigation, any other accused who is alleged to have committed an offence having a connection with the Scheduled Offence has also to be investigated. In other words, there is a connection between the Scheduled Offence under investigation and any other offence committed by any other accused;

(ii) a report by the NIA is submitted incorporating the aforesaid opinion to the Central Government;

(iii) the Central Government on consideration of such a report, in exercise of its suo motu powers under sub-section (5) of Section 6 read with Section 8 of the NIA Act directs the investigation to be carried out in respect of any other accused also; and

(iv) the said investigation of any other accused must be carried out jointly as far as practicable with the investigation of the accused already under progress owing to the connection between the Scheduled Offence and any other offence.

The Court further elucidated that the expression “the accused” cannot be restricted to only the accused in respect of whom investigation is being carried out by the NIA for any Scheduled Offence and the NIA, which is carrying on an investigation into any Scheduled Offence, can also investigate any other offence which any other accused may have committed provided such other offence is also an offence connected with the Scheduled Offence under investigation.

“… we find that the NIA was justified in seeking cancellation of bail granted to the petitioner herein by the High Court in respect of the offences alleged against him under the provisions of the NIA Act in the State of Punjab. This is because the said offences are now being investigated by the NIA and there is also transfer of the trial from the concerned Special Court in the State of Punjab to the Special Court in the State of Gujarat, to be tried along with Scheduled Offences under Sections 17 and 18 of the UAPA as per Section 14 of the NIA Act”, it concluded.

Accordingly, the Apex Court dismissed the Special Leave Petition and vacated the interim relief granted to the accused.

Cause Title- Ankush Vipan Kapoor v. National Investigation Agency (Neutral Citation: 2024 INSC 986)

Appearance:

Senior Advocate Siddhartha Dave, ASG Aishwarya Bhati, AORs Vineet Dwivedi, Arvind Kumar Sharma, Abhishek Gupta, Nikilesh Ramachandran, Advocates Sumit Kalra, Vipul Jindal, Yashika Malhotra, Anisha Arora, Simran Ahuja, Rajat Nair, Vishnu Shankar Jain, Gaurang Bhushan, Shivank Pratap Singh, Sarthak Karol, Shivika Mehra, Manisha Chava, Sagar Bhandare, Sumit Kalra, Yashika Malhotra, Anisha Arora, Simran Ahuja, Harshit Sethi, Mansi Tripathi, and Kartik Yadav.

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