Karan Johar issued notice by agency over alleged drug use in party video

Bollywood’s famous producer and director, Karan Johar, has been asked by India's Narcotics Controls Bureau (NCB) to explain a video from one his parties, allegedly containing evidence of social media users consuming drugs.

The case was taken up in response to a complaint by Manjinder Singh Sirsa — an Indian politician belonging to the second oldest party in the country, Shiromani Akali Dal — marked to the agency’s Mumbai Zonal Unit in September. Sirsa has since long been of the opinion that drugs were consumed and were widely used during this party by social media stars.

After filing this case for investigation, Sirsa tweeted, “Get ready for Koffee with NCB Karan Johar.”

The party video is part of the drug agency's probe into investigating the Sushant Singh Rajput’s death case, which began in June 2020. According to NDTV multiple Bollywood stars, including Deepika Padukone, Sara Ali Khan, Rakulpreet Singh, Shraddha Kapoor and Arjun Rampal, have been questioned as part of the probe.

According to one report, the NCB after adding Rampal to their sphere of investigation, issued a notice to Johar to question in the case. It also claimed that Johar’s interrogation is allegedly linked to the arrest of Kshitij Ravi Prasad, former Executive Producer of Dharmatic Entertainment — a company owned by Karan Johar — arrested on September 26 in Rajput’s death case.

Responding to the allegations placed against him, Johar had put out a statement in September: “Certain news channels, print/ electronic media and social media platform(s) are wrongly and misleadingly reporting that narcotics were consumed at a party that I, Karan Johar hosted on July 28, 2019, at my residence. I had already clarified my position way back in 2019 that the allegations were false.”

He further exclaimed he did not personally know two people, Anubhav Chopra and Kshitij Prasad, being investigated and dismissed as "baseless" media reports that described them as his "aides".

"These slanderous and malicious statements, news articles and news clippings have unnecessarily subjected me, my family, and my colleagues, and Dharma Productions, to hatred, contempt and ridicule," he was quoted as saying by NDTV.