No recovery, chats not proof: Aryan Khan's lawyers

Aryan, the son of actor Shah Rukh Khan, is currently in Mumbai’s Arthur Road Jail for alleged consumption and conspiracy under the stringent Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act.

Aryan Khan should be given bail because no drugs were recovered from him, and WhatsApp conversations used by the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) were not related to the cruise where the 23-year-old was arrested from three weeks ago, his lawyers told the Bombay high court on Tuesday.

Aryan Khan's bail was rejected by the sessions court on October 20, and the Bombay high court will continue to hear arguments Wednesday. (PTI)

Aryan, the son of actor Shah Rukh Khan, is currently in Mumbai’s Arthur Road Jail for alleged consumption and conspiracy under the stringent Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act.

His bail was rejected by the sessions court on October 20, and the Bombay high court will continue to hear arguments Wednesday.

Senior advocate and former Attorney General of India, Mukul Rohatgi, representing Aryan, argued that there was no recovery of drugs from him, and no medical examination was conducted to show he consumed drugs. “No recovery, no consumption, I submit I am wrongly arrested,” he stressed.

Rohatgi submitted that Aryan, who has done graduation from California and returned when the pandemic struck in 2020, was not a customer on the cruise but was invited by a man identified as Prateek Gaba, who knew the organisers. Gaba has not been arrested.

The lawyer also referred to WhatsApp conversations cited by the NCB in the sessions court to argue that Aryan was in touch with international drug smugglers, and said the chats were from 2018, 2019 and 2020.

“These WhatsApp chats have nothing to do with the incident. Those are earlier chats, when I (Aryan) was abroad and on the basis of which they are claiming that I (Aryan) was dealing with people, they suspect to be international traffickers,” said Rohatgi.

On October 2, NCB’s Mumbai zonal director Sameer Wankhede led a raid on the cruise ship Cordelia, docked at Mumbai’s International Cruise Terminal, to bust a rave party. The next day, the agency arrested Aryan Khan and charged the 23-year-old under the NDPS Act. Wankhede said that 13 grams of cocaine, 5 grams of mephedrone, 21 grams of Charas, 22 pills of MDMA, and ₹1.33 lakh in cash were recovered from the ship.

Since then, 20 people, including Delhi-based event management professionals, Nigerian nationals, and Mumbai-based drug peddlers, have been arrested under various sections of the NDPS Act. Investigators later visited Shah Rukh Khan’s house and called in actor Ananya Panday for questioning after her name showed up in Aryan’s WhatsApp conversations.

The case took a dramatic turn on Sunday when Prabhakar Sail, an NCB witness in the case, filed an affidavit saying he overheard his employer, KP Gosavi, talking on the phone to someone identified as Sam D’Souza after Aryan was brought to the NCB office. He claimed Gosavi talked about extorting ₹25 crore to settle the case and release Aryan, which could be negotiated to ₹18 crore, with ₹8 crore going to Wankhede. Gosavi had already made the news by being present during the raid, and seemingly assisting NCB officials, despite not being part of any law enforcement agency.

But on Tuesday, Rohatgi distanced Aryan from Sail’s affidavit. “I have no complaint against any NCB Officer. I am not concerned with the panch witness,” said the senior advocate, urging the court to keep the 23-year-old out of the controversy. “Kindly keep me away from me this. I don’t want to go with either the political personality or the NCB officers. They (NCB) are concentrating on Pooja (Shah Rukh Khan’s manager Pooja Dadlani) and trying to rub it on me. This unsavoury controversy between political leaders and NCB officials cannot be rubbed on me.”

The verbal exchange came after the NCB filed an affidavit in the high court and said Aryan was part of an international drug conspiracy. The agency also cited Sail’s affidavit to say that attempts are being made to “tamper” the ongoing investigation with a “malafide” attempt to derail the same.

But Rohatgi countered the agency. “The NCB is putting this on Aryan Khan and saying he is tampering with witnesses. This is affecting my client’s case,” he argued.

He added that Aryan was a “young boy with no antecedents”. “Law provides that in case of consumption, one has to be taken to rehabilitation.Approach is not to keep people in jails, the (Union) social justice ministry is talking about reforms.”

Immediately after Rohatgi completed his arguments, a lawyer sought to intervene, complaining about the purported preferential treatment given to Aryan for his bail plea. “I am supporting the prosecution, but have an objection that privileges are given to such bunch of petition,” said advocate Subhash Jha. “This is the concern of the bar as well. People are languishing in jails, but preference is given to such petitions.”

Justice NitinSambre responded to the contentions saying he takes up such matters regularly. “Everybody is given circulation and heard in my court,” said the judge.

The court posted the bail applications of Arbaaz Khan and Munmun Dhamecha for hearing on Wednesday.