NIA can probe non-scheduled offences linked to cases under its purview: SC

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Monday expanded the powers of the National Investigation Agency (NIA) by ruling that the agency could investigate non-scheduled offences under the jurisdiction of police if the agency has evidence to link these crimes and the accused to the scheduled offence that it probes, according to reports.

Given this, the apex court has made it clear that agency’s powers are not restricted to investigating offences mentioned in the schedule of the NIA Act or accused committing such ‘scheduled offences’.

The court issued the clarification, while upholding the Punjab and Haryana High Court order of cancelling bail to a man identified as Ankush Vipan Kapoor who was charged with involvement in smuggling heroin worth`100 crore from Pakistan.

A bench of Justices B V Nagarathna and N Kotiswar Singh said that while investigating, the Central could also probe ‘any other offence which the accused is alleged to have committed provided the other offence is connected with a Scheduled Offence’.

The bench added that ‘On a holistic reading of section 8, the expression ‘the accused’ cannot be restricted to only the accused in respect of whom investigation is being carried out by the NIA for any Scheduled Offence. The NIA, which is carrying on an investigation into any Scheduled Offence, can also investigate any other offence which any other accused may have committed provided such other offence is also an offence connected with the Scheduled Offence under investigation’.

The court pointed out that ‘any other offence’ mentioned in the provision ‘is wide and expansive in nature’, adding that it may or not be offence in the NIA schedule but however having ‘a connection with the Scheduled Offence under the provisions of the NIA Act’.