Senior lawyer Mukul Rohatgi said there was no occasion for the NCB to arrest Aryan Khan because there was no recovery and no consumption of drugs by the 23-year-old WhatsApp chats of Aryan Khan, son of Bollywood actor Shah Rukh Khan, from 2018, 2019 and 2020 are being cited by Narcotics Control Bureau, senior lawyer Mukul Rohatgi told the Bombay high court on Tuesday. (Anshuman Poyrekar/HT Photo) MUMBAI : Senior advocate Mukul Rohatgi on Tuesday argued Aryan Khan’s bail application before the Bombay high court claiming that the 23-year-old son of actor Shah Rukh Khan was arrested wrongly by the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB), as there was no recovery and no material to suggest consumption.
Rohatgi submitted that Aryan, who has done graduation from California and returned since Covid started, was not a customer on the cruise, he was invited as a guest by one Prateek Gaba, who knew the organisers.
There is no recovery from him and no medical examination was conducted to show that the 23-year-old had consumed drugs and therefore, there was no occasion to arrest him, said the senior advocate. “No recovery, no consumption, I submit I am wrongly arrested,” he added.
Referring to the NCB’s claim that 6gm charas said to have been recovered from Aryan’s friend Arbaaz Merchant was meant for the consumption by both of them, and therefore Aryan was also in conscious possession of the contraband material, the senior advocate said, what somebody else is having in his shoes can’t be conscious possession. “They will have to prove that I knew about it,” he stressed.
He pointed out that the statements recorded by NCB officers under section 67 of the NDPS Act are not admissible in evidence. Besides, he said, six grams is a small quantity and even if it is assumed for the sake of argument that there was conscious possession, the maximum punishment is just up to one year.
Referring to the NCB referring to WhatsApp chats involving Aryan Khan, Mukul Rohatgi said these chats relate to 2018, 2019, 2020 and were not regarding the cruise party which started on October 2.
“These WhatsApp chats […]
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