Special NDPS court rejects Siddharth Pithani’s bail plea

A special Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substance (NDPS) court on Wednesday rejected the bail application of Siddharth Pithani, flatmate of late actor Sushant Singh Rajput, arrested in a drug related case following the actor’s death.

A special Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substance (NDPS) court on Wednesday rejected the bail application of Siddharth Pithani, flatmate of late actor Sushant Singh Rajput, arrested in a drug related case following the actor’s death.

Siddharth Pithani, flatmate of late actor Sushant Singh Rajput, was arrested in a drug related case following the actor’s death. (HT FILE)

Special judge VV Vidwans rejected the bail plea of Pithani who was picked from Hyderabad by the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) headed by zonal director Sameer Wankhede.

The NCB team had served notices to Pithani to join investigations under the NDPS Act in the drug case but, the investigators claimed, he had not co-operated. Pithani was subsequently picked from Hyderabad and produced before a Telangana court that had granted them transit remand to bring him to Mumbai.

Pithani was the first person to see the actor’s body hanging from the ceiling on September 14, 2020. Hi statement was recorded by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) as well as Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) which is the investigating the suicide case of the actor.

Advocate Taraq Sayed, for Pithani, had claimed that Pithani had co-operated with the investigators from time to time, and that he was falsely implicated and there was no evidence against him. However, the court rejected his bail application.

Rajput’s former girlfriend Rhea Chakraborty, her brother Showik were also arrested in a drug case for procuring marijuana and were granted bail. Investigations from the drugs angle started after the agency discovered mentions of drugs in some WhatsApp chats after the actor’s death.