Court refuses to extend Aryan’s custody, to hear bail plea today
MUMBAI: A metropolitan magistrate court on Thursday rejected a plea by the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) for a four-day extension of the custody of Aryan Khan, son of Bollywood actor Shahrukh Khan, and seven others arrested with him in the cruise ship rave party case.
Immediately after the court rejected NCB’S plea, Aryan and others filed bail applications, but on the request of additional solicitor general Anil Singh, to grant the agency time to react to the bail applications, the court posted the pleas for hearing on Friday. Aryan and the others were, however, not sent to jail, as prison authorities require fresh RT-PCR test reports before admitting any new inmate. The group would spend the night at the NCB office.
NCB on Saturday (October 2) night raided a cruise ship at the international cruise terminal in Mumbai and apprehended Aryan Khan, his friend Arbaaz Merchant and Munmun Dhamecha, and five other persons.
All of them were booked under section 8C, 20B, 27 read with 35 of the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act, 1985, after officers seized 13 gm of cocaine, 21 gm of charas (hasish), 22 pills of MDMA (ecstasy), 5 gm MD and cash worth ₹1.33 lakh from the cruise ship and were placed under arrest on October 3.
All the eight were produced before the metropolitan magistrate court on Thursday afternoon, as their earlier NCB remand ended.
Additional solicitor general Anil Singh urged the magistrate court to extend their NCB custody for four more days, contending that based on the information provided by Aryan Khan and Arbaaz, one more person, said Aachit Kumar, a drug supplier has been arrested and 2.6 gm marijuana has been seized from his house in Powai.
Singh claimed that Aachit was part of the drug trafficking network in the city and Aryan and Arbaaz were connected with him. He added that one foreign national has also been arrested in the case and contraband material in commercial quantity seized from him.
Aryan’s lawyer Satish Maneshinde strenuously opposed the contention. He submitted that Aryan has cooperated with investigators and has not been interrogated for the past two days. “Now, they want to confront me with Aachit Kumar, which they could have done earlier,” he said. Lawyers for the other accused persons also opposed the prayer for extension of their NCB remand.
Advocate Taraq Sayed, who represented Arbaaz, submitted that Aryan and Arbaaz know each other, but they can’t be connected with the others. The agency has failed to establish their connection with any other accused. Metropolitan magistrate RM Nerlikar accepted their contentions and rejected the NCB plea, terming it vague.