The Bombay High Court will continue hearing the bail plea of Aryan Khan, the son of Bollywood actor Shah Rukh Khan who has been arrested in a drugs case, on Thursday when the NCB will present its arguments. Justice N W Sambre began hearing the bail application on Tuesday. The matter will be heard at 3 pm.
“Tomorrow we will try to finish it,” Justice Sambre said after Wednesday’s hearing which went on for over two hours.
Both Aryan and co-accused Arbaaz Merchant’s counsels cleaved through the NCB’s allegations of conspiracy and told the court that the charge was not applied during the arrest, and that the arrest copy did not mention it at the time either.
Senior advocate Mukul Rohatgi, appearing for Aryan Khan, argued that the arrest was a direct infringement of constitutional provisions as the arrest memo did not give the “true and correct grounds”.
Senior counsel Amit Desai, appearing for Merchant, pointed out that the special court for Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act on Tuesday granted bail to two other accused in the case — Manish Rajgaria and Avin Sahu. “The allegations against them are also the same. In fact there was recovery of 2.6 grams of ganja (cannabis) from one of the accused and the second had said that he had consumed,” Desai said.
“If not on (the ground of) parity but on liberty these boys (Aryan Khan and Merchant) should be granted bail…Release them on bail with strict conditions,” Desai argued. He further told the court that the charge of conspiracy and abetment was invoked in the case by the NCB as an afterthought.
“Why was there a need for an arrest based on the evidence at that time? There was no conspiracy at that point,” Desai told the court.
“This is a case of nothing more than personal consumption,” he added.
One of the biggest allegations levelled by the anti-drugs agency against Aryan, Merchant and model Munmun Dhamecha, who was also arrested from the ship during the drug bust, is that they are a part of a larger, international drug racket.
Instead of arresting them, the NCB should have first issued them a notice under section 41A of the Code of Criminal Procedure (under which an accused is asked to appear and record a statement in minor offenses), the lawyer said. “What was the need to arrest them at that time when conspiracy charge was not even applied,” Desai said, adding that the charge of possession of small quantity of drugs only attracts one year’s imprisonment, so it was a minor offense. The NCB’s arrest memo of October 3 contained only sections 20(B) and 27 of the NDPS Act which relate to consumption and possession of drugs, and “there is no mention of sections 28 and 29 pertaining to abetment and conspiracy,” advocate Desai said.
“There are no WhatsApp chats between these three accused with the other accused. The WhatsApp chats being relied upon by the NCB are old and have no connection with this case,” the lawyer added. These alleged WhatsApp chats of Aryan and others were provided to the media but were not part of court records, he said, questioning their veracity. Justice Sambre said the United Kingdom has done away with the need to supply a certificate to prove the authenticity of electronic evidence, but the same is needed in India.
Advocate Kaashif Ali Khan Deshmukh, appearing for Dhamecha, said she was made a scapegoat only because she was detained with Aryan and Merchant. “The NCB has made Dhamecha a part of the alleged drug network. She doesn’t even know these persons (Aryan and Merchant). She comes from a small town in Madhya Pradesh and is a fashion model,” he said.
After the hearing which went on for over two hours, Justice Sambre said he would hear Additional Solicitor General Anil Singh, who is representing the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB), on Thursday. Aryan Khan (23), Merchant and Dhamecha were arrested along with others on October 3 following a raid by the NCB on a cruise ship off the Mumbai coast and alleged seizure of drugs.
They approached the HC last week after a special court for NDPS Act cases rejected their bail pleas.
(With PTI inputs)
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