HC strikes down drug case against actress Mamta Kulkarni

A division bench of justice Bharati Dangre and justice Manjusha Deshpande struck down the criminal case against Kulkarni citing the lack of evidence against her.

MUMBAI: The Bombay high court on Monday struck down criminal proceedings against actress Mamta Kulkarni in connection with the drug trafficking case involving the seizure of Ephedrine worth ₹2,000 crore.

Mamta Kulkarni

A division bench of justice Bharati Dangre and justice Manjusha Deshpande struck down the criminal case against Kulkarni, who had worked in around 50 Hindi films before she shifted to Mombasa, Kenya with her husband, citing the lack of evidence against her.

Her husband, Vicky Goswami, who is said to be the mastermind of the racket had manufactured and procured Ephedrine, which is a controlled substance under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act, 1985.

On April 12, 2016, the Anti-Narcotics Cell of the Thane police intercepted two cars and seized Ephedrine worth around ₹80 lakh from the two vehicles. Both drivers were arrested after police found they procured the controlled substance from a factory in Solapur district.

The factory run by Avon Life Sciences Limited, is purportedly controlled by Vicky Goswami. Kulkarni, the police said, was one of the directors of the company based in Solapur and owned 11 lakh of the company shares, and therefore her name was added to the list of accused persons against whom the chargesheet was filed.

The police claimed that they came to know that meetings, which took place in January and April in Mombasa, Kenya, about smuggling the drug were attended by Vicky and Mamta and several Colombian and Moroccan drug dealers are also involved in the racket.

The police had already gotten a Red Corner notice issued for the arrest of Goswami and had declared their intentions to get one issued for the arrest of the actress as well after which Mamta approached the high court in 2018 to quash the criminal proceedings against her.

In the petition filed through advocate Madhav Thorat, she claimed she was innocent and the criminal proceeding against her was required to be quashed, as there was no evidence against her at all.

She claimed that she was roped into the case only because of being linked to the alleged main conspirator. “Merely on the ground that the petitioner has some cordial relationship with co-accused Mr Vicky Goswami, Petitioner cannot be arraigned as accused,” her petition stated.

As regards the allegations of Mamta participating in the conspiracy meetings, advocate Thorat said the allegations were solely based on the statement of a co-accused and that there is no evidence of any nature. Thorat contended that if there were allegations of her involvement in a conspiracy, there should have been something reflected in terms of bank transactions, indicating her participation. In any case, he said statements of co-accused are inadmissible as evidence and as such there was no evidence to proceed against the actress.

Ephedrine’s potential use to make methamphetamine has made it a highly sought-after chemical precursor in the illicit manufacture of recreational drugs.