Mumbai The advocate for actor Rhea Chakraborty, who was arrested on drug-related charges in 2020, sought a re-opening of investigation by the Narcotics Control Bureau (Mumbai zone) conducted in the past three years.
Satish Maneshinde, who also represented Aryan Khan — the 24-year-old son of Bollywood actor Shahrukh Khan, who was arrested in the high-profile Cordelia drug bust case last October — said that many such “Bollywood youngsters” had been summoned by the NCB but “nobody knows for what.”
Aryan was among six persons exonerated by the agency as it filed charges in a Mumbai court on Friday. Of the 20 persons arrested by the NCB in the cruise-ship drug case, the agency filed cases against 14.
Chakraborty came under the NCB scanner after an investigation into actor Sushant Singh Rajput’s death by suicide purportedly revealed a trail of WhatsApp chats pertaining to the sale and purchase of drugs. She was arrested on September 8, 2020, four days after brother, Showik, was apprehended. The siblings were booked by the NCB for consumption, possession, illicit trafficking among other sections of the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act, 1985.
The probe in Aryan Khan’s case has exposed the way several such cases under the NDPS Act were dealt with by the NCB, Maneshinde said.
“She was neither a consumer nor was anything recovered from her,” the lawyer said. “There is no evidence against her, apart from the WhatsApp messages which had no corroboration. They booked her on the bases of some random entries of payment which had no corroboration.”
‘Small quantities’
Six grams of ‘charas’ found in a plastic pouch hidden in a shoe, five grams of ‘hashish’ in a pouch on the floor, 2.4 g of hydroponic weed — these were some of the recoveries made by the Narcotics Control Bureau when a team led by Mumbai zone director Sameer Wankhede raided cruise ship Cordelia on October 2, 2021. Twenty people were arrested in the high-profile case, including Aryan.
A special investigation team (SIT) of the NCB, formed under deputy director general Sanjay Singh to take over the investigation last November, called the case an “ordinary drug case” and not a conspiracy as was made out, and admitted that legal procedures were not followed while the raid was conducted, or while witness statements were recorded and evidence collected.
Last October, the agency claimed to have seized multiple drugs like 13 g of cocaine, 5 g of Mephedrone, 21 g of ‘charas’, 22 pills of MDMA (ecstasy) and Rs. 1.33 lakh in cash.
According to the charge-sheet that a special investigation team (SIT) of the NCB filed on Friday before the Mumbai sessions court, the cruise ship bust case started with a “reliable information” received by one of their intelligence officers, Haresh Gangan, on October 2. The informer told him that some of guests of the cruise liner scheduled to leave for a holiday trip to Goa from the International Cruise Terminal at Green Gate in Mumbai were in possession of drugs with them.
Greater Noida resident Vikrant Chhokar and his friend Ismeet Singh Chadha were the first to be apprehended by the agency officials. On enquiry, both of them allegedly conceded that they had contraband material on them. Chhokar purportedly had 10 g of cocaine and 10 g of ‘charas; in his possession, while Chadha purportedly had 15 MDMA (Ecstasy) tablets.
Aryan Khan and his friend, Arbaaz Merchant, were intercepted by the NCB team. On enquiry, Merchant allegedly revealed that he was carrying ‘charas’ in a plastic pouch in his shoe. No contraband material was found in Aryan’s possession.
Delhi resident Gomit Chopra was allegedly found to be carrying 3 g cocaine and four MDMA (Ecstasy) tablets. The NCB team searched a room booked by Gurugram resident Nupur Satija and found 1.59 g of MDMA.
On October 4, the NCB team visited the cruise liner again after its captain informed the agency that three persons had been detained. One of them, Manish Rajgariya, was arrested for alleged possession of 2.4 g hydroponic weed. Thereafter, the agency arrested two more persons for possession: Shreyas Nair for allegedly carrying 2 g of ‘charas’ and Aachit Kumar for reportedly possessing 2.6 g of marijuana.
“The Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act has a specific provision under sections 27, 39 and 64 which deals with drug users. The law itself takes lenient view of the drug consumers and provides for their release without prosecution. The law says that that if the person is caught with small quantity or caught consuming, they can be rehabilitated,” said lawyer Taraq Sayyed.
Besides Aryan, five other accused — Samir Sehgal, Manav Singhal, Bhaskar Arora, Gopal Ji Anand and Avin Sahu — were given a clean chit in the 6000-page charge sheet filed by the NCB on Friday.
