Cruise ship rave party case: Court rejects bail plea of Aryan Khan, two others

Additional chief metropolitan magistrate RM Nerlikar accepted the objections raised by additional solicitor general of India Anil Singh and advocate Advait Sethna on behalf of NCB that the bail pleas were not maintainable before him.

A metropolitan magistrate court on Friday rejected the bail applications of Aryan Khan, son of Bollywood star Shahrukh Khan, and his friends Arbaaz Merchant and Munmun Dhamecha, arrested by the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) following a raid on a cruise ship at the international cruise terminal in Mumbai on Saturday.

Aryan Khan being taken to Arthur Road jail from NCB office after being arrested in connection with the alleged seizure of banned drugs from a cruise ship.(PTI)

Additional chief metropolitan magistrate RM Nerlikar accepted the objections raised by additional solicitor general of India Anil Singh and advocate Advait Sethna on behalf of NCB that the bail pleas were not maintainable before him.

“The bail pleas are not maintainable before this court and the court first need to decide on maintainabilty of the pleas and then only they can arguments be advanced on merits,” Singh asserted as the hearing started on the bail applications.

Singh said in court that, as per Section 36 of the Narcotics Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act, offences under the Act can be tried by a special sessions court, adding that Bombay high court has already said that NDPS Act crimes are non-bailable, and therefore the accused will have to move to a special NDPS court for bail.

Singh also said that the accused cannot be segregated on the basis of recoveries made from them. “Whether you are found with bulk quantity of drugs or with no drugs, as the FIR is the same, you will have to move the special court where such offences are triable,” he submitted.

Advocate Satish Maneshinde, who appeared for Aryan Khan, said he has been booked under Section 8C of the NDPS Act, but the section was not applicable to him. He said NCB officers have only found some WhatsApp messages of interest from Aryan Khan, and since his mobile handset is already with them, nothing is left to be recovered.

Maneshinde also contended that though Section 27 of NDPS Act for consumption of narcotics drugs or psychotropic substance is applied against his client, there is no material evidence to show that he consumed drugs. In any case, he added, the maximum punishment for consumption is one year imprisonment.

He said that Section 29 of NDPS Act, for punishment for abetment and criminal conspiracy, was also applied against Aryan Khan though there was no evidence to show even an iota of conspiracy.

“No contraband material was found on the 23-year-old, nothing in his bag, nothing in his car,” he said. Maneshinde said that the court has power to grant remand, and the inherent power to grant bail. He further stressed that Aryan Khan is just 23 years old, has no criminal background, and since nothing has been found on him, his bail plea should be considered on merit with technicalities standing in the way.

Taraq Sayed, who appeared for Arbaaz Merchant, submitted that six grams of charas was recovered from him, and that there was nothing else to connect him with other accused. He said that it was a pure case of consumption, attracting only the penal provisions related to consumption, and urged the court to grant bail.

Advocate Ali Kashif Deshmukh who appeared for Munmun Dhamecha, says that NCB had said absolutely nothing against his client because nothing was found while searching her.

Singh, who countered their arguments said: “Everybody has argued as if I have opposed their right to bail. I have only submitted that it is not maintainable before this court. This application for interim or regular is not applicable in this court. This court can grant remand that doesn’t mean you can grant bail, you will have to go to special court for it.

Under the NDPS Act, there are special provisions under contained in section 36A of, and even the Bombay high court has said the same, he submitted. For interim bail, too, the concerned court will be a regular sessions court, Singh said, adding that if regular bail can’t be decided by this court, how can it decide interim bail.

The court accepted Singh’s objections, and rejected the bail applications as non-maintainable.

NCB detained Aryan Khan along with seven others on Saturday night, and arrested him on Sunday afternoon during the raid on the cruise ship on which he was present. The agency recovered 13 grams of cocaine, 5 grams of mephedrone, 22 pills of MDMA (Ecstasy) -- all categorised as “intermediate quantities”, and 21 grams of charas, which falls under “small quantity”, and cash of ₹1.33 lakh during the raid.