New Delhi: A special NDPS Act court in Mumbai on Tuesday, October 27, granted bail to two persons arrested in the high profile drug case in which Bollywood actor Shah Rukh Khan’s son Aryan is one of the accused.Manish Rajgaria and Avin Sahu became the first accused in this case to get bail. Both are originally from Rourkela in Odisha, reports have said.The Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) had claimed that the two were among the “guests” on the cruise ship where narcotic drugs were recovered off the Mumbai coast on October 2. They were arrested on October 5.Hindustan Times has reported the during the hearing of Rajgaria’s bail petition earlier, his lawyer Taraq Sayed told the NDPS court that his client was arrested with alleged recovery of 2.4 grams of ganja, “a nano-small quantity”.He had also argued that ‘panchnama’ doesn’t mention from where the contraband was recovered.Sahu’s lawyer Sana Khan said nothing has been recovered from her client and the only allegation was that Sahu consumed ganja twice while on the cruise.The NCB has arrested as many as 20 people in the case including Aryan Khan.The bail order is in contrast with the special NDPS court’s rejection of the bail applications of Aryan and two others in the case.The Bombay high court is now hearing their bail pleas amidst pitched media attention.Notably, Aryan’s lawyers have argued that no contraband was discovered on him, making him liable for bail.Aryan’s bail application was primarily rejected by special judge V.V. Patil because of two stated reasons, Ravi Singh Chhikara and Prakruthi Jain had analysed for The Wire. One was voluntary statements recorded allegedly admitting possession of substances and the other was WhatsApp chats revealing communication with people suspected to be part of a an “international drug racket”.In both these cited reasons, it appears that the court did not follow precedent and established principles of law, the authors have noted.(With PTI inputs)
