PRAYAGRAJ, Dec. 19 -- The Allahabad high court on Friday dismissed writ petitions that challenged the FIRs lodged against multiple accused of interstate trafficking of codeine-based cough syrup.

Dismissing a batch of 23 writ petitions, including that of the alleged kingpin of the suspected cough syrup nexus Shubham Jaiswal and his father, a division bench comprising Justice Siddhartha Varma and Justice Achal Sachdev observed that the enormity of the entire matter needed to be investigated. The FIR was lodged against them at Varanasi as well as at other districts in the state.

Additional advocate general Anoop Trivedi, appearing for the state government, informed the court that in Varanasi alone over 2.23 crore bottles had been recovered...