Court to pronounce order on Punjab drug racket on Nov 18

Chandigarh, Oct 26 (IANS) After over three years "delay" in the Punjab multi-crore drug case, the Punjab and Haryana High Court on Tuesday announced it will pass an order on November 18.

It also observed that the matter has been pending adjudication without any effective order being passed since 2018.

Earlier, an application was filed by the state for examining status reports filed in 2018 be taken up on priority.

After examining the plea, an order was passed by a bench of Justices A.G. Masih and A.K. Verma to enable the prosecuting agency to proceed as per law, an official statement quoting the office of Advocate General A.P.S. Deol said.

The bench considered the plea raised on behalf of the state and after hearing the Advocate General for an hour, orally observed that the bench "is conscious of the fact that the matter has been pending adjudication without any effective order being passed since May 23, 2018 and, therefore, the bench does not want to give an impression that we are sitting over the matter".

"So considering the plea raised in the application, the court has directed the Registrar Judicial to produce the status reports in sealed cover in chamber and observed that we will examine the reports in these days prior to passing the order on November 18," said the statement.

The request of Satya Pal Jain, representing the Centre, to file further status report with regard to the progress in the extradition of certain accused as well as the latest report by the Enforcement Directorate and other agencies be filed on November 15, two days before the pronouncement of the order.

Earlier, the case was being heard by the bench of Justices Rajan Gupta and Ajay Tewari but the latter recused himself from hearing the case on September 1.