No evidence of conspiracy with other accused: Aryan Khan’s bail order
Mangalore Today News Network
Mumbai, Nov 20, 2021: The Bombay High Court released a detailed bail order of Aryan Khan in the Mumbai cruise drugs case on Saturday. In the order, the high court noted that Aryan Khan was "not found in possession of any objectionable substance" and that no evidence of conspiracy was found between Aryan Khan, Arbaaz Merchant and Munmun Dhamecha, the other accused in the case.
Shah Rukh Khan’s son Aryan Khan was among 20 people who were arrested after a raid conducted by the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) on a Mumbai cruise on October 2. Aryan Khan was taken into custody on October 3. He was formally arrested later but was granted bail after three weeks in Arthur Road jail in Mumbai.
The Bombay High Court, in Aryan Khan’s bail order, said that WhatsApp chats found on Aryan Khan’s phone do not indicate any connection of the "three applicants with other co-accused on the issue of conspiracy".
"Aryan is concerned, but for irrelevant WhatsApp chats noticed in his mobile, there is no material evidence to connect all these three applicants with other co-accused on the issue of conspiracy," the order issued by the Bombay High Court said."After having gone through the WhatsApp chats extracted from Applicant/Accused no. 1’s [Aryan Khan] phone, nothing objectionable could be noticed to suggest that applicant nos. 1 & 2 [Arbaaz and Munmun Dhamecha] or all three applicants alongwith other accused persons in agreement have meeting of minds and have hatched conspiracy committing the offence in question," the court order read.
"There is hardly any positive evidence on record to convince this court that all the accused persons with common intention agreed to commit unlawful act," the court order said.
The Bombay High Court also noted that "the applicants were not even subjected to medical examination so as to determine whether at the relevant time, they had consumed drugs."
On the NCB’s argument that the accused had admitted committing the crime, the court said, "However, in view of submissions made by Mr Singh, [NCB’s lawyer] it is worth to clarify here that such confessional statements can be considered by the investigating agency only for the investigation purpose and cannot be used as a tool for drawing an inference that applicants have committed an offence under the NDPS Act as has been alleged against them."
"Merely because of applicants were travelling on the cruise, that by itself cannot be termed as a satisfying foundation for invoking provisions of Section 29 against the applicants," the court order said.
The Bombay High Court concluded by saying that "...it is difficult to infer that applicants are involved in an offence of commercial quantity [of drugs]. As such, parameters laid down under Section 37 of the NDPS act will be of hardly any consequence while considering the prayer for grant of bail of the applicants."
Courtesy:India Today