Aryan Khan given bail, after 25 days in custody

Aryan spent 25 days at the Arthur Road jail in Mumbai, along with Merchant, for alleged consumption of drugs and alleged conspiracy under the stringent Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act

The Bombay high court on Thursday granted bail to Aryan Khan, 25 days after the son of actor Shah Rukh Khan was arrested in a drug raid and thrown in jail in a case that the defence termed “farfetched” and based on flimsy evidence.

Senior advocate Mukul Rohatgi (centre), who represented Aryan Khan, addresses the media at the Bombay high court on Thursday. (Anshuman Poyrekar/HT PHOTO)

The Bombay high court on Thursday granted bail to Aryan Khan, 25 days after the son of actor Shah Rukh Khan was arrested in a drug raid and thrown in jail in a case that the defence termed “farfetched” and based on flimsy evidence.

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The court will dictate the judgment in open court on Friday. Aryan, his friend Arbaaz Merchant and Munmun Dhamecha, who were also granted bail on Thursday, are expected to walk out of jail later on Friday or on Saturday.

“All three applications are allowed. I will pass detailed orders by tomorrow evening,” said justice Nitin Sambre after three days of hearing.

Aryan spent 25 days at the Arthur Road jail in Mumbai, along with Merchant, for alleged consumption of drugs and alleged conspiracy under the stringent Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act. Dhamecha was lodged at the Byculla women prison on similar charges.

Addressing media persons outside the court, former attorney general of India Mukul Rohatgi, who represented Aryan in the high court, said, “It was hard and tough battle after lost in first court. This case was a cynosure of all eyes in the country and people were eagerly waiting for the result.”

As news of the bail order spread, crowds gathered outside Khan’s south Mumbai home “Mannat”, burst crackers and distributed sweets.

Aryan was arrested by NCB on October 3, a day after Wankhede led a raid on the cruise ship Cordelia docked off the Mumbai coast. Wankhede said that 13 grams of cocaine, 5 grams of mephedrone, 21 grams of charas, 22 pills of MDMA (ecstasy), and ₹1.33 lakh in cash were recovered from the ship.

He also claimed that Aryan was linked to international drug cartels, and therefore needed to remain in custody.

But the case turned on its head on October 24, when a key NCB witness alleged that Wankhede was part of a ₹25 crore extortion racket targeting Aryan. The witness, Prabhakar Sail, also alleged that he was forced to sign sheets of blank paper, prompting the anti-drug agency to set up a vigilance inquiry into Wankhede.

As delays mounted, experts doubted whether protocol was breached during the raid – private individuals like Sail’s employer Kiran Gosavi, who was arrested in Pune on extortion charges on Thursday, were seen assisting officials and walking into the NCB office despite holding no official position in any law enforcement agency.

Moreover, the relatively small quantity of drugs recovered – only 6 grams of charaswere found from Merchant’s shoe – made experts question the serious charges and the prolonged jail stay through hearings, delays and bail denials by a special NDPS court and sessions court before the matter was taken up by the high court on October 26.

“There is no medical examination to show that he has consumed drugs. There is no recovery, no medical test, no consumption so no occasion to arrest me submit that I am wrongly arrested. The WhatsApp chats relied upon by the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) were exchanged much earlier. Chats might have been exchanged while Khan was in a country like USA, where cannabis is legal. Conspiracy is when all twenty (accused) have met before and there is a meeting of minds,” Rohatgi said.

The anti-drug agency claimed that Aryan was in touch with international drug gangs and furnished his WhatsApp conversations as proof. In court on Thursday, additional solicitor general (ASG) Anil Singh, appearing for the NCB, said Aryan had made an attempt to deal with commercial quantity.

“WhatsApp chats show this. The NCB has also obtained a certificate under section 65B of the Indian Evidence Act to authenticate that the electronic evidence has been collected from the accused’s phone,” he said.

Singh argued that the NCB had got “secret information” that around 11 people were going to consume drugs on the cruise. “At the time of raid, out of the 11 persons, eight were apprehended and most of them were found with drugs. This cannot be a coincidence. This is why the NCB is saying it is a conspiracy,” Singh said.

He also argued that Aryan and Merchant were habitual consumers of drugs. “Our record shows that Aryan has been procuring drugs in bulk and commercial quantities. These are hard drugs. He (Aryan) has been in contact with drug peddlers,” the ASG said.

He further opposed Aryan’s arguments that there was no drug recovery from him and said there was “conscious possession” as he was aware that Merchant was carrying charas which was meant to be for consumption on the Goa-bound cruise.

Singh even said the accused persons ought not to have tried to do all this on October 2, Mahatma Gandhi’s birth anniversary that is marked as a dry day in India. “Drug menace is a serious problem in our society. It is a heinous crime that is worse than culpable homicide and hence has to be dealt with accordingly,” he said.

In his rebuttal, Rohatgi said conspiracy needed a “meeting of minds”. “Aryan does not know any of the other accused in the case except Arbaaz Merchant. There is absolutely no material to show conspiracy,” Rohatgi argued.

In the bulk of their arguments over the previous two days, the defence argued that the WhatsApp chats were from 2018 to 2020 and not linked to the cruise. They also said that the NCB didn’t recover any drugs or have hard evidence of any conspiracy.

Senior advocate Amit Desai, representing Merchant, had pointed out that in case of minor offences, the settled legal position was that arrest was permitted only in exceptional cases. “Bail is the rule and jail is exception, now arrest is the rule and bail is exception,” Desai had said.

Arguing for Aryan, Rohatgi said, “That he was not aware of what Arbaaz Merchant was carrying and that, of the 1300 people on the cruise, the only person Aryan Khan has any link with is Arbaaz Merchant. He further states that as there was no meeting of the minds, there could not have been any conspiracy and argued that if different people in a hotel, in different rooms, are all smoking, would it be possible to call that a conspiracy? He reaffirms that, other than Arbaaz Merchant, Aryan Khan did not know any of the other accused, and that there is no material for alleging a conspiracy in the instant case.”

He further said that the NCB is arguing that the instant case must be a conspiracy as it cannot be a coincidence, but that there cannot be any conjecture while alleging a conspiracy.

But around 4.15pm, his arguments were cut short by justice Sambre, who tossed the case papers towards his staff and said, “All three applications are allowed.”