Mumbai, April 27 -- A special Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) court has discharged Kunal Jagdish Jani from a case registered by the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) during its crackdown on alleged drug peddlers following the death of actor Sushant Singh Rajput in 2020, holding that there was no legally admissible material linking Jani to the alleged drug network and that putting him through trial would be a "futile exercise". The NCB had, in August 2020, registered a case linked to the abetment of Rajput's suicide, based on inputs from the Enforcement Directorate. It later arrested several people, including actor Rhea Chakraborty, and filed a charge-sheet naming over 30 accused. As the probe progressed, it registered multiple additional NDPS cases based on disclosure statements and small recoveries, treating them as separate prosecutions arising from the same probe. Jani was not named in the main charge sheet, but was brought in later in a separate case through statements of co-accused. According to the prosecution, Jani's name surfaced in the statement of a co-accused, who claimed to have obtained his contact through another person. Subsequently, Jani's own statements were recorded and a supplementary complaint filed arraigning him as an accused. The special court, however, allowed Jani's discharge plea, saying the case "rests upon his own statement, which is not admissible in the eyes of law". The court relied on the Supreme Court's ruling in the Tofan Singh case, which clarified that statements recorded by NCB officers under section 67 of the NDPS Act cannot be treated as confessional evidence in court. The prosecution conceded that statements of co-accused under section 67 had "no bearing on the fate of the case". The court also found a complete absence of independent incriminating material against Jani. There was no recovery from him, no witness linking him to any transaction, nor was he named in the statements of key accused in the case. The court noted that the primary accused, from whom contraband was allegedly seized, "nowhere whisper[ed] the name of the applicant". The prosecution's attempt to rely on Jani's alleged criminal antecedents was also rejected. The court held that the material cited merely showed that the investigating officer had sought a statement recorded in another case, and "it does not mean that the applicant is arrayed as accused therein"....