New Delhi, Mar 2 (PTI) The NCB will again question some "independent" witnesses and accused, apart from its own officials involved in the October, 2021 Mumbai drugs-on-cruise case before filing a chargesheet, officials said on Wednesday.

The agency also described the media reports of finding no evidence against accused Aryan Khan, son of actor Shah Rukh Khan, in the case as "just speculation".

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The Delhi-based special investigation team (SIT) of the agency probing the case is expected to file a chargesheet before a special court in Mumbai by the end of this month if the investigation is completed, official sources said.

The case has multiple links, including with those who are in jail and those out on bail. A chargesheet may be filed by March-April and if the probe is not concluded and further forensic examination of gadgets is required, an extension could be sought from the court, the sources said.

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"As far as the media reports on non-availability of evidence against Aryan Khan are concerned, these are not true and are just speculation and nothing else."

"These statements were not cross-checked with the NCB before being published. Investigation is not yet completed and it is premature to say anything at this stage," NCB Deputy Director General (operations) Sanjay Kumar Singh said in a statement.

Singh is the head of the SIT.

"What has been stated in a recent news report regarding Aryan Khan's role is on the same lines as what the Bombay High Court had said while granting bail to him and two others. However, the investigation is yet to be concluded," a senior officer, who did not wish to be named, said.

Khan and seven others were arrested by the agency on October 3 last year after overnight raids on a cruiseliner operated by the Cordelia company that was berthed at the international cruise terminal at the Green Gate in Mumbai.

The NCB headquarters here had transferred this case, which was being probed by the NCB Mumbai office under its former zonal director Sameer Wankhede, to the SIT in November last year following allegations of extortion and procedural lapses. A total of 20 people were arrested in the case.

Wankhede had refuted all the charges levelled against him, saying he was being targeted as he was trying to unravel high-profile narcotics cases.

The sources said the SIT will soon question some of the nine "independent" witnesses listed in the case by the NCB and the other accused involved in the case, apart from the investigators of its Mumbai office who probed these cases initially.

A number of them were questioned by the SIT earlier too.

They indicated that prima facie, the SIT has found non-adherence to certain NCB manuals in the cruise case and that there were certain "lapses" being investigated with regard to the application of some sections of the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act by the officials in the case.

They, however, refused to elaborate on the exact findings and the role of the individual accused.

The Bombay High Court, while granting bail to Khan and two others last year, had said it found no positive evidence against them to say that they had conspired to commit an offence.

"There is hardly any positive evidence on record to convince this court that all the accused persons with common intention agreed to commit unlawful acts," the court had said while rejecting the NCB argument that the case of three accused -- Khan, Arbaaz Merchant and Munmun Dhamecha -- ought to be considered together.

Rather the probe carried out till date suggests that Khan and Merchant were travelling independently of Dhamecha and "there was no meeting of minds" on the alleged offence, the order had said.

The order said Khan was not found in possession of any objectionable substance and this fact has not been disputed. Merchant and Dhamecha were found to be in illegal possession of drugs, the quantity of which is considered small, it had said.

Drugs like cocaine, mephedrone, charas, hydroponic weed and MDMA (ecstacy) and Rs 1.33 lakh in cash were seized by the agency after the raids on the cruise on the night of Gandhi Jayanti on October 2.

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)