New Delhi, Aug. 25: The Supreme Court today wondered what happened to "illicit drugs worth several hundred crores" seized every year as it stressed the need for a proper mechanism to account for the hauls.

Contraband like ganja, hashish, heroin, ecstasy and other such substances are impounded each day throughout the country but neither the Centre nor the states have been able to account for them.

Although these drugs are seized by the Centre's Narcotics Control Bureau and the states' drug control authorities, they are usually sent to the local police stations under whose jurisdictions they are tracked down.

"The situation is very bad. Every day, the Narcotics Control Bureau seizes Rs 50 crore, Rs 100 crore worth of contraband. Where do they go? There should be a proper mechanism to deal with it," a bench of Justices T.S. Thakur and N.V. Ramana asked solicitor-general Ranjit Kumar, representing the Union government.

The judges asked Kumar to place before the court within a week details of steps the Centre was taking for disposal and destruction of such contraband at least in Delhi.

"What is the current position to enable these drugs in safe custody? What happens in other countries? How do they make it foolproof? What is the process for destruction, you have to tell us," the apex court said.

The bench was dealing with a 2012 appeal by the Centre against the acquittal of a suspected drug peddler by Punjab and Haryana High Court.

Though the solicitor-general told the apex court Parliament had amended the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (amendment) Act last year to create state-level "drug disposal committees", the bench was not satisfied with the answer.

"Have the committees been established? In Delhi, (in) some subjects you (the Centre) have the jurisdiction, in some subjects, the (the AAP-led) state government has it. Does this come under your (the Centre's) jurisdiction," the bench asked. Kumar answered in the affirmative.

The bench then told Kumar that since the Centre had law and order control over Delhi, it should place before the court details of whether any "drug disposal committee" had been set up in the capital for disposing of/destroying seized drugs.

"If we are satisfied with what you are doing in Delhi, then we may ask the other states to follow. You place the details before us in week," the bench told the solicitor-general.

The directive came after amicus curiae Ajit Kumar Sinha informed the court that although the authorities seized drugs worth several hundred crores each year, "the disposal and destruction was only 5 to 10 per cent". "In Calcutta, for instance, not a single record is available about the way drugs are disposed of or destroyed," Sinha told the court.