New Delhi, October 18
The Supreme Court on Tuesday highlighted the issue of drug menace in the country and asked a law officer and a court-appointed amicus curiae to come out with “reasonable solutions” which can be taken as the basis to modulate the directions to curb it.
Additional Solicitor General Aishwarya Bhati informed a bench of Chief Justice U U Lalit and Justice Bela M Trivedi the departments concerned like the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) are working towards augmenting the mechanism to tackle the issue.
The court had earlier asked the ASG to assist it in the suo motu case titled “The Menace of Drug Mafia Network Operating in The Country”.
A letter dated November 9, 2021 was sent to the apex court highlighting the smuggling of huge quantum of drugs from Afghanistan into India and requesting the court to direct constitution of a Special Investigation Team to probe the international and national narcotic drug mafia in the country.
Then CJI N V Ramana had in November last year directed that the letter be converted into a suo motu case.
During the hearing on Tuesday, the apex court told Bhati she and advocate Shoeb Alam, who has been appointed as an amicus curiae in the matter, can sit together and give some ideas to the court on the issue.
“We want some kind of module or some idea…. Mr Alam and you, both of you can sit together and give us some ideas which we can translate in the form of directions and order and then it becomes applicable and govern the entire situation,” the bench told Bhati at the outset.
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