A special court in Mumbai on Saturday granted permission to freeze the bank accounts of actor Rhea Chakraborty, her brother Showik and her mother Sandhya. The accounts were frozen by the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) in 2020 following an FIR registered in the case of actor Sushant Singh Rajput’s death that year.

While some of their accounts were defrozen in 2021, the family filed fresh applications through lawyers Ayaz Khan and Zehra Charania for the release of funds in ICICI, Axis and Kotak banks. These applications specifically sought to defreeze accounts that were mostly held jointly by different family members.

According to the NCB report, the applicants argue that the NCB has not followed the provisions of Section 68F of the NDPS (Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances) Act and thus freezing the bank accounts is illegal. It further read:

• Section 68F of the NDPS (Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances) Act, lays down the procedure, while empowering authorized officers to seize or freeze assets that are believed to have been acquired illegally through drug trafficking.
• Sub-section (2) of section 68F is designed to prevent indefinite freezing of assets without independent inspection. It mandates that any order of seizure or freezing issued by an investigating officer must be reviewed and confirmed by the competent authority.

Advocate Ayaz Khan, appearing for Rhea Chakraborty and Sandhya Chakraborty, said that this was not done in the case of four bank accounts of the Chakraborty family.

Additional Public Prosecutor Geeta Nayyar, representing the NCB, opposed the application on the grounds that the statement of accused Rhea Chakraborty revealed that she was an active member of a drug syndicate approached by drug peddlers and, therefore, the authorities were satisfied in freezing the bank accounts of the accused.

However, Special Judge UC Deshmukh said that sub-section (2) of Section 68F of the Act provides that an order for confiscation or confiscation of property shall have no effect unless such order is confirmed by an order of the competent authority within a period of 30 days of its making. There is no dispute that the contents of the bank account have been frozen by the NCB officer.

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The judge said, “NCB does not deny that there is no compliance with sub-section (2) of section 68F of the Act. There is no order to be passed under such provisions of the Act. Therefore, in view of the observations of the Hon’ble High Court in Jatinder (supra) and the provisions of section 68F of the Act, the application deserves to be allowed.”

The applicants have not made any official statement on the recent developments.