MUMBAI: The Bombay High Court has granted bail to Jitendra Ravindra Vora, who was arrested by the Mumbai Police’s Anti-Narcotics Cell (ANC) in connection with a major mephedrone (MD) manufacturing racket busted in Ankleshwar, Gujarat.
The case pertains to the seizure of 513 kg of MD, valued at ₹1,026 crore in the illicit market, from a factory in Ankleshwar. Overall, the ANC has recovered 2,428 kg of MD, valued at approximately ₹4,857 crore, from various accused in the case.
Justice Neela Gokhale granted bail to Vora on the ground of parity, noting that Chintan Shah, the lessee of the industrial unit where the contraband was allegedly being manufactured, had earlier been granted bail by the Supreme Court.
The investigation began in March 2022, when the ANC’s Worli unit arrested a peddler in Govandi with 250 grams of MD. His interrogation led to the arrest of a supplier, from whom 2.8 kg of the drug was seized. Subsequent leads pointed to two distributors operating in Mumbai’s eastern suburbs.
Based on further investigation, the ANC arrested Kiran Pawar, manager of Namau Chem, a chemical factory in Ambernath that manufactured scheduled drugs for pharmaceutical companies. The probe revealed that Pravin Kumar Singh, a native of Jaunpur in Uttar Pradesh, had allegedly been producing and supplying MD from the Ambernath unit since the onset of the Covid-19 lockdown. The ANC recovered 705 kg of MD from two shops linked to him in Nalasopara.
Investigators later found that Singh was also guiding workers at the Ankleshwar-based Infinity Research and Development Ltd in manufacturing the drug. Acting on this information, the ANC raided the Ankleshwar factory on August 14, 2022, seizing 513 kg of MD along with raw materials used in its production. Vora allegedly sold MD to one of the arrested distributors and raised invoices for the transactions. He was arrested on September 9, 2022. Subsequently, he approached the high court for bail after the Supreme Court granted relief to co-accused Chintan Panseria in November 2025, citing prolonged pretrial incarceration and delays in the commencement of trial.
During the hearing last week, justice Gokhale, taking note of the parity principle, directed Vora’s release on furnishing a personal bond of ₹1 lakh and one or more sureties of the same amount.