On September 7, 2026, a bench of Chief Justice Surya Kant, Justice Joymalya Bagchi, and Justice V. Mohana directed the Union and every State and Union Territory to establish 449 exclusive courts for trying cases under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act, 1985 (“NDPS Act”) — “preferably within six weeks.” Only 176 of those courts currently exist. The order came in a suo motu proceeding, In Re: Creation of Special Exclusive Courts, SMW(Crl) No. 1/2026, that the Supreme Court has used across several hearings through 2026 to press the Union and states to actually set up the exclusive courts required for cases under the NDPS Act, the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (“UAPA”), and cases investigated by the National Investigation Agency (“NIA”). Chief Justice Surya Kant has previously flagged in this very proceeding how courts are “constrained to release some accused on bail due to long pendency of trials even in serious cases” under statutes like UAPA — the exact tension this order is meant to relieve.

This is not a case about a single accused or a single conviction. It is an infrastructure order, and in Indian criminal law, infrastructure and liberty are the same question. The NDPS Act makes bail exceptionally difficult to obtain for commercial-quantity offences; if there is no court sitting to try you, that difficulty becomes indefinite pre-trial detention. Understanding why the Court is issuing deadline after deadline — and what happens if states miss this one too — matters as much to a criminal defence practitioner in Chhattisgarh as it does to a prisoner’s family waiting for a trial date.

What the Court Actually Ordered

The bench recorded that the requirement for exclusive NDPS courts, originally assessed at 394, had been revised upward to 449 as case filings kept climbing, while the number of functioning courts had risen more slowly, from 113 to 176. That leaves a shortfall of 273 courts. The Court’s own words on the gap were blunt: “It seems to us that owing to the present pendency of cases and the unfortunate, alarming increase in the cases under the NDPS Act, it is expedient and in the interest of justice that all required 449 courts are established at the earliest.”

Alongside the NDPS direction, the Court also tracked the parallel track of exclusive NIA courts under Section 11 of the NIA Act, 2008, noting that 22 such courts had now been constituted — eight more than at the previous hearing — and gave individual, shorter deadlines to specific states that were lagging: Assam was given four weeks to operationalise two proposed NIA courts, while counsel for Karnataka and Tamil Nadu committed to setting up their remaining NIA courts within two weeks. The Union was directed to ensure infrastructure and staffing — not merely a notification re-designating an existing sessions court — since the bench has previously stressed that these courts must be genuinely exclusive rather than dual-charged benches that also handle ordinary criminal or civil dockets.

A Deadline the Court Has Set Before

This is not the first time the Court has fixed a timeline in this matter. Earlier hearings in the same proceeding produced incremental progress reports — the Union informed the Court that 113 courts had been designated for NDPS trials and 14 for exclusive NIA trials, with a further four weeks sought at that stage. The pattern — a progress update, a fresh count of the shortfall, another short deadline — reflects both the scale of the Union-state coordination problem and the Court’s evident reluctance to let the matter drop off its docket.

Why This Is a Bail Problem, Not Just an Administrative One

Section 37 of the NDPS Act imposes what is often called a “twin-condition” bar on bail for commercial-quantity offences: a court cannot release an accused unless the public prosecutor has had an opportunity to oppose bail, and the court is further satisfied that there are reasonable grounds to believe the accused is not guilty and is unlikely to offend again while on bail. In practice, this threshold is close to impossible to meet before trial evidence has actually been led — which is precisely why the identity of the trial court, and how quickly it sits, decides how long an undertrial spends in jail.

The Supreme Court has recognised the tension this creates with Article 21’s guarantee of a speedy trial. In Union of India v. K.A. Najeeb, (2021) 3 SCC 713, the Court held that constitutional courts retain the power to grant bail under the analogous twin-condition bar in Section 43-D(5) of the UAPA where prolonged incarceration without meaningful trial progress itself violates Article 21 — the statutory embargo, the Court said, cannot be read to override the fundamental right to a speedy trial indefinitely. That principle is regularly invoked by NDPS undertrials as well, given the structural similarity between Section 37 and Section 43-D(5). But relying on a constitutional exception is a poor substitute for a functioning trial court in the first place: it requires a fresh round of litigation, often up to the High Court or Supreme Court, just to get what an operating special court could have delivered as a matter of course — witnesses examined, a trial that actually moves, and a verdict within a reasonable time.

The Scale of the Underlying Backlog

The scale of the problem is considerable. In August 2026, the Ministry of Home Affairs told states that roughly 3.96 lakh NDPS cases remained pending nationally, following multiple rounds of meetings with state chief secretaries and home secretaries. Union funding — the Court has separately floated a central contribution of roughly ₹1 crore per court — has been offered as one lever for states citing budget constraints, though the more persistent bottleneck reported across hearings has been appointing dedicated judicial officers and staff, not courtroom infrastructure itself.

What Comes Next

The Court has not indicated what sanction, if any, follows a missed deadline; its practice in this proceeding has been to call the matter back for a further status report rather than hold anyone in contempt. But the direction is not merely aspirational — Union and state counsel made specific, individualised commitments on the record, which the Court can hold them to at the next hearing. For practitioners, that is a near-term opening: in districts where the required exclusive court has still not been notified, citing the September 7 order and the relevant state’s commitment can support both administrative follow-up and, where incarceration is already prolonged, a fresh bail application invoking the Najeeb line of reasoning.

Practical Implications

For criminal defence lawyers, three things follow directly from this order. First, jurisdiction is now worth checking, not assuming: if a “special” NDPS court hearing a client’s matter is, in substance, an ordinary sessions court that has also been assigned other criminal work, that fact is relevant to both case-management arguments and to the state’s own compliance record before the Supreme Court. Second, prolonged pre-trial custody caused by the simple absence of a functioning court is now backed by an unusually explicit judicial acknowledgment of the problem, strengthening bail applications built around delay even where Section 37’s twin conditions remain formally in place. Third, prosecutors and investigating agencies should expect faster listing once new courts come online in the affected districts over the coming weeks, and should prepare witness and forensic timelines accordingly rather than relying on the slack that chronic under-capacity has provided until now.

For citizens and families with a relative facing an NDPS charge, the practical takeaway is more direct: ask whether the case is currently listed before a genuinely exclusive NDPS court, and if not, whether one has been notified for that district following this order. That single fact can materially affect how quickly a trial — and any resulting bail decision — actually proceeds.

Frequently Asked Questions

What exactly did the Supreme Court order on September 7, 2026?

It directed the Union and all States/Union Territories to establish the full complement of 449 exclusive NDPS courts, of which only 176 currently exist, preferably within six weeks, and tracked parallel deadlines for setting up exclusive NIA courts in specific states.

Which case is this, and is it a new proceeding?

It is a suo motu matter, In Re: Creation of Special Exclusive Courts, SMW(Crl) No. 1/2026, that the Supreme Court has used across several hearings to monitor the creation of dedicated courts for NDPS, UAPA, and NIA-investigated cases — this is a continuation of that ongoing oversight, not a fresh case.

Why does the number of required courts keep changing?

The Court’s assessed requirement was revised upward from 394 to 449 courts as case filings under the NDPS Act continued to rise, reflecting a moving target rather than a one-time calculation.

Does the absence of a special court mean an accused automatically gets bail?

No. Section 37 of the NDPS Act’s twin conditions for bail in commercial-quantity cases apply regardless of which court hears the matter. But prolonged detention caused by trial delay can independently support a bail application on Article 21 speedy-trial grounds, as recognised in Union of India v. K.A. Najeeb.

What happens if states miss the six-week deadline?

The order does not specify a penalty. The Supreme Court’s practice in this proceeding has been to call the matter back for further compliance reports, using the record of specific commitments made by Union and state counsel to press for progress at each hearing rather than imposing contempt sanctions outright.

Who is funding the new courts?

The Union has offered financial support, including a contribution of around ₹1 crore per court in earlier hearings, but the states retain primary responsibility for infrastructure, judicial appointments, and staffing, which several counsel have identified as the more persistent bottleneck.

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