NIA can investigate you even if you're not in the original FIR

He got bail for a drug case in Punjab. Then the NIA linked his case to a Gujarat heroin bust — and the court cancelled his bail.

Ankush Kapoor walked out of custody in 2021. The Punjab & Haryana High Court had granted him bail in two separate drug cases — one in Mohali, one in Amritsar. He had every reason to believe he was free. The prison gates had clanged shut behind him months earlier; now they swung open. He stepped out into the Punjab sun, a free man.

Then the National Investigation Agency (NIA — India's federal counter-terrorism agency) arrived.

The NIA told a different story. Kapoor's Punjab cases, the agency argued, were not isolated drug busts. They were threads in a much larger tapestry: a 500-kilogram heroin seizure off the Gujarat coast, smuggled from Pakistan by sea, with terrorism charges under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 1967 (UAPA — a law that gives the government special powers to investigate terror-related offences). The NIA got his bail cancelled. Kapoor went back to jail.

The question that reached the Supreme Court was deceptively simple: Could the NIA investigate a man who was never named in the original Gujarat FIR (a written complaint that starts a police investigation)? Or had the agency overstepped?

When the Punjab arrests happened

Kapoor's legal troubles began in January 2020. On January 29, the Punjab Police's Special Task Force arrested him in Mohali after a co-accused named him during interrogation. The air in the room that day must have been thick with the chemical smell of the drug-processing materials found on his premises — heroin, solvents, precursor chemicals — all seized and bagged as evidence. Handcuffs clicked shut. Two days later, another FIR was registered in Amritsar under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act, 1985 (NDPS Act — the law that criminalises the production, possession, and sale of narcotics). Kapoor was arrested that day too.

For a year and a half, these were ordinary state-level drug cases. Kapoor applied for bail. The High Court granted it — first in July 2021, then in September 2021. He was released.

But behind the scenes, something else was moving. The case files sat in a different stack now — one that would soon be transferred across state lines.

The Gujarat connection

In August 2018, the Gujarat Police's Anti-Terrorism Squad registered an FIR in Ahmedabad. The case involved 500 kilograms of heroin smuggled from Pakistan by sea — a massive haul that pointed to an international syndicate. Imagine the scene at the dock: dozens of bags, each heavy with the beige powder, stacked on pallets under the harsh port lights, customs officers in gloves cutting one open, the smell of salt and diesel mixing with the acrid chemical odour of raw heroin. The Ministry of Home Affairs transferred this investigation to the NIA in June 2020 under Section 6(5) read with Section 8 of the NIA Act (provisions that allow the central government to hand over a case to the NIA if it involves a scheduled offence — a crime listed in the NIA Act's schedule, including terrorism, drug trafficking linked to terror, and organised crime).

As the NIA dug into the Gujarat syndicate, it found connections to the Punjab cases involving Kapoor. The agency reported this to the central government, which then issued two orders — one in June 2021, another in October 2021 — transferring both Punjab FIRs to the NIA. The agency argued that Kapoor's drug offences were "connected offences" to the Gujarat case, which now attracted UAPA charges.

Kapoor's bail was cancelled in January 2024. He challenged both the cancellation and the central government's transfer orders in the Supreme Court.

What Kapoor argued

Kapoor's lawyers made a straightforward argument: the NIA Act gives the agency power to investigate "scheduled offences" — crimes listed in the Act's schedule. The Punjab cases were NDPS Act offences, which are not scheduled offences under the NIA Act. The only scheduled offence in the picture was the Gujarat case, and Kapoor was not named in that FIR. He was not an accused in the Gujarat case. How, then, could the NIA claim jurisdiction over him?

The argument rested on a narrow reading of Section 8 of the NIA Act, which allows the agency to investigate "connected offences" while investigating a scheduled offence. Kapoor's lawyers said the phrase "the accused" in Section 8 could only mean the person already accused in the scheduled offence FIR. Since Kapoor wasn't named there, the NIA had no power to touch him.

The NIA countered with a broader reading. The agency said Section 8 was not about who the accused is — it was about what offences the NIA can investigate. If during a scheduled offence investigation, the agency discovers other people involved in connected crimes — even non-scheduled offences — it can investigate them too. The central government's transfer orders were valid because the connection between the Gujarat syndicate and the Punjab cases was real.

Why the Supreme Court agreed with the NIA

Justice B.V. Nagarathna, writing for the bench, rejected Kapoor's narrow interpretation. The courtroom that day was silent as the judge read the key finding: the expression "the accused" in Section 8 of the NIA Act cannot be restricted to only the person named in the scheduled offence FIR. It includes any other accused whose offences are connected with the scheduled offence and are discovered during the NIA's investigation. The stack of files on the bench — the Gujarat case, the two Punjab FIRs, the transfer orders — all told one connected story.

The court's reasoning was rooted in the structure of the NIA Act itself. The bench observed that the Act, especially Section 6, is "offence-centric and not accused-centric." In plain language: the law focuses on what crime was committed, not who was initially named in the complaint. If the NIA is investigating a scheduled offence — like the Gujarat heroin case with UAPA charges — and finds that other people in other states are part of the same criminal enterprise, it can investigate them even if their individual crimes (like NDPS offences) are not scheduled offences.

But the court did place limits. The NIA can widen its investigation to non-scheduled offences only "while investigating any Scheduled Offence." The agency has no unbridled power to start investigating a connected non-scheduled offence if there is no live scheduled offence investigation happening. In Kapoor's case, the Gujarat case was very much alive — a 500-kilogram heroin seizure with terrorism links — so the connection was valid.

The court also laid down four conditions for the NIA to investigate connected offences: (i) a connection between the offences must exist, (ii) the NIA must report this to the central government, (iii) the central government must direct the investigation under Section 6(5) read with Section 8, and (iv) the investigation must be conducted jointly with state police as far as practicable.

What this means for you

For criminal lawyers and accused persons, this judgment closes a potential loophole. If you are arrested in a state-level case — say, a drug offence, a counterfeit currency case, or an organised crime case — and the NIA later finds a connection to a scheduled offence it is already investigating, the agency can take over your case even if your name never appeared in the original scheduled offence FIR. The NIA's jurisdiction follows the crime, not the accused list.

THE PLAY: If you are accused in a non-scheduled offence that the NIA claims is connected to a scheduled offence it is investigating, challenge the connection on facts — not on the argument that you were never named in the original scheduled FIR, because the Supreme Court has now closed that door.

The court dismissed Kapoor's writ petition. The central government's transfer orders were upheld. The bail cancellation stood. Ankush Kapoor, who thought he was free after two bail orders, remains in custody — because the NIA saw a connection he could not break. The chemical smell of that Mohali raid, the weight of those 500 kilograms on the Gujarat dock, the silent stack of files in the Supreme Court — all of it led back to one man in a cell, waiting.