Decision on Aryan’s bail plea in drug case on Oct 20: Court
MUMBAI: A special court on Thursday posted the bail applications of Aryan Khan, Arbaaz Merchant and Munmum Dhamecha to October 20, nearly 10 days after the three were arrested during a raid on a cruise ship by the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB).
Special Narcotics Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) court judge V V Patil, who heard arguments over October 13 and 14, said he would pronounce his order on October 20.
Khan, 23, son of Bollywood actor Shah Rukh Khan, was among eight people arrested on October 3 from Cordelia, a holiday cruise ship anchored in Mumbai that was set to leave for Goa later that evening.
Following the raid in which 13 grams of cocaine, 5 grams of mephedrone, 21 grams of charas, and 22 pills of MDMA (ecstasy) and a sum of ₹1.33 lakh in cash was recovered, 20 people were arrested under various sections of the NDPS Act.
Additional Solicitor General (ASG) Anil Singh, representing the NCB, argued that there was evidence to show that Khan was a regular consumer of drugs for the past few years. “They were going to the cruise and had planned to have a blast. The quantity of hard drugs that is found can’t be for personal consumption. It’s not a case for bail as the accused are influential and might tamper evidence,” Singh said.
Drug abuse is affecting youngspiracy
sters, and being college-going boys should not be a consideration for bail, Singh said, adding that the future of the country depends on this generation.
“This is not what our freedom fighters had in mind. This is the land of Mahatma Gandhi and Buddha. The investigation is at preliminary stage, this is not the stage for grant of bail,” he added.
The NCB has maintained that though nothing was recovered from Khan personally, his Whatsapp chats reveal his links with drug peddlers. Singh claimed Khan’s Whatsapp conversations revealed that he was in touch with a person abroad who appeared to be part of an international drug trafficking network. The NCB was in touch with the external affairs ministry to identify people in the network, the ASG said.
“Though there are independent recoveries they can’t be taken in isolation. They (all the arrested accused) are all part of illicit drug chain. Whether you are found with drugs or not found with drugs or found with minor quantity of drugs, you cannot say nothing was found on you. We have found commercial quantity from one of the accused... Charge of conhas been applied, so accused can’t be segregated,” Singh said.
Senior advocate Amit Desai who represented Khan argued that Whatsapp chats on which the federal investigative agency relied needed to be seen in context of the language of the youth, which may seem to be a “torture” for the older generation. “By no stretch of imagination, the boy can be said to be involved in illicit drug trafficking or international drug racket. These allegations are false. The chats... needs to be seen in complete context, and checked [whether] they are jokes or banter.”
“Today’s generation youth are different, they chat, they joke. A casual communication can sometimes look suspicious to the agencies. He was out of India for long. In a lot of other countries, such consumption is legal,” Desai said. He countered Singh’s argument stating that NCB was pointing to an international trafficking racket, but if the consumer stated from where he procured drugs, then “the chain was complete”.
The NCB itself had alleged that Khan disclosed the name of Achit Kumar, another arrested accused, Desai said. The agency can continue the probe, but the allegation of links to international racket against Khan is “inherently absurd and false,” he said.
Desai said that NCB was claiming that they have seized commercial quantity of contraband material from one Abdul Kadir, but Khan was not in touch with him.