NIA MAY JOIN SUSHANT CASE INVESTIGATION

NEW DELHI: The National Investigating Agency has now been cleared by the Central Government to investigate drug related cases, and senior officers in the government confirmed that this may be a precursor to the agency, originally created to deal with terrorrelated crimes, being asked to look at the case surrounding the death of actor Sushant Singh Rajput, which has since snowballed into a major probe into drug use in the film industry. If that happens, NIA will become the fourth federal agency to get involved in the case, after the Central Bureau of Investigation, the Enforcement Directorate and the Narcotics Control Bureau. The Ministry of Finance’s Revenue Department on Tuesday, issued a notification that said that the Centre after consulting with states “invests the officers of and above the rank of inspectors in the NIA to exercise the powers and perform duties” according to section 53 of the Narcotics Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act, 1985.

This section allows the government to give any officer “the powers of a police station for the investigation of the offences under this Act’’. NIA was established a year after the 2008 Mumbai serial blasts to specifically focus on terror related activities across the country. In an amendment to the NIA Act last year, the agency was also given the jurisdiction to probe cases related to human trafficking, counterfeit notes and cyber terrorism but narcotics cases were still not in its purview -- till Tuesday’s order that’s been signed by under secretary Biswajit Sarkar. A government official said that the order could “expand the ambit of the ongoing probes in the SSR case, where drugs, money laundering and national security issues have emerged.”