Dabba Cartel is a Netflix crime series with seven episodes in its first season. Shabana Azmi, Jyotika, Shalini Pandey, Nimisha Sajayan and Anjali Anand play the five women at the centre of a story involving a tiffin business, a pharmaceutical company and an illegal drug operation. If you are searching for its cast or wondering whether it is a film, Netflix's official pages identify it as a 2025 series, directed by Hitesh Bhatia.
| Question | Answer |
|---|---|
| Where to watch | Netflix |
| Format | Crime drama series |
| Season 1 length | Seven episodes |
| Director | Hitesh Bhatia |
| Setting | Thane |
| True story? | Netflix describes it as fictional |
Dabba Cartel cast and character names
Netflix's official cast and story guide identifies Shabana Azmi as Sheila Jagtap. Sheila has a past connection to the drug trade. Shalini Pandey plays Raji Jagtap, a chef who is also Sheila's daughter-in-law. Their family connection is one of the simplest ways to keep track of the ensemble when reading the premise.
Nimisha Sajayan plays Mala, a domestic worker who operates a small tiffin business with Raji. Anjali Anand plays Shahida, a broker. Jyotika plays Varuna Dasgupta, a former head of finance at VivaLife Pharmaceuticals who now runs a clothing label. These five characters come from different backgrounds, and their existing work and family circumstances are part of the published explanation of how they become involved.
The investigation has its own set of principal characters. Sai Tamhankar plays police officer Preeti. Gajraj Rao plays drug safety officer Ajit Pathak. Jisshu Sengupta appears as Shankar Dasgupta, Varuna's husband, while Lillete Dubey plays Sheila's friend Moushumi. Sushmita Mukherjee is Tejaswi Tijori, who works for VivaLife.
The official guide also lists Bhupendra Singh Jadawat, Sandesh Kulkarni, Santanu Ghatak and Sunil Grover among the performers. It credits Shibani Akhtar, Vishnu Menon, Gaurav Kapur and Akanksha Seda as the creators. Hitesh Bhatia's director credit is separate from those creation credits, an important distinction for anyone looking up the team behind the series.
How many Dabba Cartel episodes are there?
The official series hub lists seven episodes under Season 1. Its public summaries label them Episode 1 through Episode 7. The following outline uses those summaries to explain the progression without disclosing the final discovery or treating promotional descriptions as a personal recap.
- Episode 1: A society party introduces a pharmaceutical scandal, while Raji and Mala look for premises for their food business.
- Episode 2: Sheila's past becomes relevant and the investigation takes Pathak to Amritsar.
- Episode 3: Varuna's clothing business faces difficulties as deals develop around Sheila and Raji's food venture.
- Episode 4: A business opportunity for Varuna runs alongside progress in Pathak's inquiry.
- Episode 5: Conflict between Varuna and Shankar accompanies another turn in the women's illegal enterprise.
- Episode 6: The pharmaceutical trials and a fresh danger to the group take greater prominence.
- Episode 7: The women disagree about their future while the investigators reach an important discovery.
This is an episode map, not a recommendation to begin in the middle. The summaries show continuing business, family and investigation threads across the seven parts. Starting with Episode 1 preserves the introductions to the tiffin service and the pharmaceutical scandal that later developments build upon.
Is Dabba Cartel based on a true story?
Netflix's answer is no: the series is fictional. Its official setup describes VivaLife Pharmaceuticals encountering a scandal connected with an unregulated opioid. That corporate trouble intersects with the lives of women in its staff community and the small food business run by Mala and Raji.
The tiffin service is therefore more than a title reference. It is the ordinary business around which the published crime premise is built. Viewers should keep the show's fictional company and regulatory storyline separate from claims about a real business or real investigation. The official material does not establish that the plot recreates a named criminal case.
Where to find the official viewing page
The Netflix India title page is the destination for viewing and for checking the audio, subtitles and maturity label available to an account. Information was checked on November 12, 2026. This guide covers the documented first season; the pages used here do not supply a second season release date, despite that phrase appearing in search suggestions.
For other ensemble dramas on the same platform, our guides explain the casts and formats of Black Warrant, Kohrra season 2 and Saare Jahan Se Accha. Their characters and investigations belong to separate stories. Dabba Cartel's identifying combination remains its five central women, food business, pharmaceutical scandal and seven-part first season.
