NCB used their ‘stock panch’, says accused in bail plea

Abdul Kadar Shaikh, accused in the Cordelia cruise ship drugs bust case, has alleged that NCB officers planted drugs in his possession. He claims a witness used against him has testified in 15 other cases, and the veracity of the alleged recovery of drugs from him should be doubted. The NCB denies the allegations.

Abdul Kadar Shaikh, one of the accused in the Cordelia cruise ship drugs bust case, has alleged that Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) officers had used their “stock panch withess”, Jogeshwari resident Shaikh Usmani, against him and the banned substances allegedly found in his possession were planted by the agency.

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In his bail plea before the Bombay high court, Shaikh, who also hails from Jogeshwari, has attached a list of 15 other cases, registered by the NCB between November 2020 and October 2021, where Usmani has been used as a panch witness either during arrest or seizure of narcotic substances.

Shaikh, 30, who worked as a senior executive with a logistics firm, was arrested at a bus stop opposite a mall in Juhu on October 3, 2021, a day after the raid on the cruise. This was based on the statement of Mohak Jaswal, who was arrested along with Aryan Khan, his friend Arbaaz Merchant and others. At the time of his arrest, Shaikh was allegedly found in possession of 2.5 grams of ecstasy tablets and 54.3 grams of mephedrone.

The special court, set up under the NDPS (Narcotic Substances and Psychotropic Substances) Act, turned down his bail plea earlier last year. Then he moved a bail plea through his lawyers Apoorv Srivastava and Kushal Mor before the HC, claiming that he had been falsely implicated by the NCB.

In his plea, Shaikh said that 30-year-old Usmani, who acted as a panch witness when the NCB officers allegedly found narcotic substances on him, worked as a “stock panch” for the agency. “Usmani has acted as a panch witness for the NCB in 16 crimes and has even acted as a panch witness for a different panchnama in the present case (cruise ship drugs case).”

“Time and again the Supreme Court and the Bombay HC have denounced the practice of using habitual panch witnesses, as they are pliable, under the thumb of the authorities, whose evidence is not worthy of any credence,” the plea pointed out.

He further alleged that “considering that Usmani has acted a panch for the NCB in so many other cases, he is very much under the thumb of the NCB and is malleable as per their whims and fancies. The applicant therefore states that since the entire operation was conducted in a suspicious manner, the veracity of the alleged recovery of contraband from the applicant ought to be doubted”.

Besides, Shaikh claimed that his legal team had managed to get hands on the CCTV footage of DB Mall where “Usmani was seen carrying a white bag at the time when the panchnama was being prepared on October 3, 2021”.

He claimed that another man – Vijendra Ramesh Waingankar -, who acted as the second panch witness to his arrest and the purported seizure of drugs from him, was not seen anywhere near the spot in the CCTV footage of the relevant time (indicating that he wasn’t present at the place where the panchnama was being drawn).

The allegations, Shaikh’s lawyers said, will go to the root of the case and if proved in the trial court, the entire case would come under the cloud of suspicion as panch witnesses play a very crucial role in the cases registered under the NDPS Act, especially those who witness seizure of contraband from accused.

The NCB, on the other hand, has said that the evidence in the form of panchnama is correct and authentic.

In its reply to Shaikh’s bail plea, filed earlier this month, the agency claimed that “even if the witnesses have appeared as independent witnesses in any previous case, the case in hand is entirely unrelated to any such case, and both the panchas were taken on the spot”.

“The respondent further states that both the panchas witnessed the search and seizure proceedings and after completion of panchnama proceedings, put their signatures on the panchnama certifying the correctness of the proceedings,” the agency said.