Japan gives Ness Wadia 2-year suspended sentence for possessing drugs

Mumbai: The son of India’s business tycoon Nusli Wadia and chairman of Wadia Group, Ness Wadia, has been sentenced to two years of imprisonment in Japan over possession of drugs while on a holiday, under stringent narcotics laws, the Financial Times reported on Monday.

The co-owner of Kings XI Punjab cricket team was caught with 25 grams of cannabis resin in his pockets in early March at New Chitose Airport in the northern Japanese island of Hokkaido. This functions as a popular transit point for skiers looking to travel to locations like Niseko, Sapporo, Furano and Rusutsu, the report said.

Wadia, however, spent a period in detention before his indictment on March 20 and an undisclosed period of detention before a court hearing. According to reports, he had admitted to the possession of drugs, saying it was for his personal use.

“The Sapporo District Court handed him a two-year prison sentence, which was suspended for five years,” the Financial Times report added. Since then, it is alleged that he has left from Japan and returned to India.

Ness Wadia sentencing will not affect him “in the discharge of any of his responsibilities”, the Wadia Group said in a statement today.

A spokesman of the Wadia Group in a statement said: “The judgement is clear. It is a suspended sentence. Hence it will not impact Ness Wadia in the discharge of any of his responsibilities and he will continue to play the role that he has done hitherto, both within the Group and outside.”

Ahead of the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, Japan’s narcotics laws are being applied tightly.

This is not the first time Wadia has had a run-in with the law. In 2014, he was accused of molesting and abusing his then partner Preity Zinta by grabbing her arm during an IPL match at Mumbai's Wankhede Stadium.