A competent authority has upheld the impounding of immovable properties, jewellery and a car belonging to a convicted drug dealer, a top police officer said.
In early September, Bengaluru district police impounded the properties of Anjay Kumar Singh from Byagadadenahalli near Anekal and from his home state of Bihar. The properties included vacant lands, a three-bedroom flat and an SUV — all registered in his wife Sheeladevi's name — and Rs 9.7 lakh cash in a joint bank account held by the couple.
Singh, a native of Arrah in Bihar's Bhojpur district, was sentenced in 2009 to four years' imprisonment after a court there held him guilty of drug peddling. In 2016, he settled down at Byagadadenahalli.
In mid-2019, Bengaluru's Suryanagar police seized 822 kg of ganja by arresting two people from Andhra Pradesh and one from Anekal. Police later found that the banned substance had been transported to Bengaluru by Singh through his chauffeur and a close aide. Police recently traced Singh to his hideout in Arrah and arrested him. They impounded the movable and immovable properties under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act on the grounds that these were gains from drug dealing.
Singh appealed to the competent authority under the Smugglers and Foreign Exchange Manipulators (Forfeiture of Property) Act, 1976, and the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act, 1985, in Chennai, against the seizure of the properties.
Dismissing the appeal, the competent authority declared that Singh’s properties were acquired from the money he gained illegally from the ganja business and upheld the police order, said M Chandrasekhar, Inspector General of Police, Central Range.
Watch latest videos by DH here:
(Published 13 October 2021, 20:51 IST)
JOIN US