The spectacle of a cabinet minister of the Maharashtra Government fulminating and issuing threats against the Zonal Director (ZD) of the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB), after the ZD had arrested a high-profile star kid for drug possession, would have been rather droll had it not signified a new low in Centre-State relations.

Both State and Union Government agencies are supposed to further the law; perhaps the correct course of action for the honourable minister would have been to apprise the Union Government of his misgivings about the ZD, and for the Union Government to handle the Minister’s misgivings expeditiously. However, nothing of this sort happened; rather, supporting his minister, the Maharashtra CM termed the arrests made by the NCB as an attempt to tarnish the fair name of Maharashtra.

Coming on the heels of the shenanigans of members of the Mumbai police, like its absconding Commissioner or the rogue officers who planted explosives outside the Ambani residence, the airing of unsubstantiated allegations against investigating officers of Central agencies by State ministers, would definitely jolt public confidence in the Government. The drug bust by the NCB, a routine operation, with the twin aim of curbing drug use amongst page three personalities and discouraging rave parties on cruise ships, has had a number of unintended and unpleasant consequences.

Firstly, because of the wide publicity given to the drug raids, the public adjudged the accused as guilty right after their arrest. Communal elements, who habitually accuse the minorities of all kinds of wrongdoings, had a field day. Bollywood and Mumbai bashers got ammunition for their guns. For politicians the drug raid was an opportunity to further their agenda; supporters of the State Government portrayed the raid as a case of Central overreach while votaries of the Union Government termed it as a necessary step to discipline the high and mighty.

However, the most regrettable offshoot of the enforcement action was the vilification and character assassination of the Zonal Director, who had made the drug-related arrests. Highly personal details, like his birth certificate were put on social media. A witness to the drug seizure claimed that he had been made to sign a blank panchnama. The same witness also alleged and that he had personal knowledge of the ZD negotiating for an unlawful monetary consideration from the accused persons.

After such developments, the accuser became the accused in the public eye and media made it appear as if the ZD was on trial and not the drug runners. This, however, does not condone the way in which the case was handled by the Zonal Director. For good reason, Government rules enjoin officers to shun publicity; however, in their hunger for publicity, officers of NCB ignored this golden principle, exposing everyone in the organisation to barbs of the media.

The accused were in an even worse position; their guilt had been taken as established by the learned commentators on 24-hour news channels and social media. One only has to remember what happened in the Sushant Singh Rajput case, when the reputation of everyone associated with him was dragged through the mud. Probably, the stern warning sounded by the Supreme Court against defamatory reporting in Sushant Singh’s case had the effect of mellowing down the reporting by news channels a tiny bit in the Aryan Khan case.

Also, the informant and his sidekick, the one who has alleged irregular monetary transactions, were taken on as witnesses, which is against accepted norms because both of them could be said to be interested persons. Shockingly, the informant was allowed to photograph the accused and take selfies with him, which definitely impinges upon the right to privacy of the accused.

A remarkable fact repeatedly highlighted by the defence counsel was that no drugs were seized from Aryan Khan nor was he found to have consumed banned drugs, yet he was denied bail on multiple occasions. The explanation lies in the provisions of the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act which lays down that the judge can grant bail only if he believes that the accused is innocent!

Thus, the legal maxim ‘bail is the rule, and jail is an exception’ has been turned on its head by the NDPS Act. Remarkably, contrary to criminal jurisprudence, an accused charged under the NDPS Act is presumed to be guilty unless proved innocent, which provides wide latitude to the investigating agency to press grave charges, without proper evidence.

Higher courts, who spell out their own powers in the widest terms and even stray into the Executive’s domain, are uncharacteristically reticent while dealing with cases of persons held under draconian enactments like NDPS or UAPA. The Government, on its part, often cites concerns of national security as an omnibus reason for many of its unreasonable actions.

The Supreme Court has done well to call out the Government’s bluff in the Pegasus case holding that the Government cannot ride roughshod over citizens’ rights merely by raising the spectre of a threat to national security. It would be interesting to watch how this pronouncement of the Supreme Court affects the outcome in other cases.

That said, courts that are normally protective of citizens’ rights, have failed to notice that there are no provisions for a time-bound trial in NDPS or UAPA, resulting in accused persons languishing in jail for long periods, while their trials linger on. At a time when Indian drug enforcement agencies seem to be waging a war against occasional drug users, many countries like the USA, at whose instance the NDPS Act was drafted, have decriminalised drug consumption.

Alarmed by the possible misuse of provisions of the NDPS Act and contrary to the Government’s stance in the Aryan Khan case, the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment has recommended amendments to the NDPS Act that would decriminalise possession of small quantities of drugs for personal consumption. Further, the Social Justice Ministry has suggested that addicts and drug users should be treated as victims, to be de-addicted and rehabilitated, rather than being sent to jail.

Lastly, as Opposition parties repeatedly allege, there could be a political angle to coercive actions of enforcement agencies. Many question the NCB’s agility in cases of drug consumption by Bollywood personalities while little progress is seen in bigger cases, like the seizure of three tonnes of heroin in the Mundra Adani Port.

The Opposition alleges that the heavy hand of law has fallen too many times on political opponents to be a mere coincidence; as Auric Goldfinger said in the iconic Ian Fleming bestseller: “Mr Bond, they have a saying in Chicago: ‘Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. The third time it’s enemy action.’”

The last word is yet to be said on the present controversy; even while the Bombay High Court was hearing the country’s top advocates in bail proceedings, both sides were issuing vituperative statements against each other.

One only hopes that with bail being granted to Aryan Khan, there could be a lull in the contentious give and take between people who should know better than wash their dirty linen in public. But whatever be the outcome, people would always remember l’affaire Aryan Khan for irretrievably damaging the image of the Maharashtra Government, as well as that of the Central enforcement agencies.

(The writer is a retired Principal Chief Commissioner of Income-Tax)