In the wake of the recent Bombay HC order, which stated that there is no "positive evidence" against Aryan Khan, Arbaaz Merchant, and Munmun Dhamecha in the Cordelia cruise drug bust case, Maharashtra Home Minister Dilip Walse Patil has said that the Mumbai Police will probe whether the case filed by NCB against Khan was "fake".
There is prima facie “no evidence” to show that actor Shah Rukh Khan’s son Aryan, his friend Arbaz Merchant and Munmun Dhamecha hatched a conspiracy to commit offence under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act, the Bombay HC order had said.
The court said that their travelling on the cruise liner cannot be said to be sufficient ground to invoke conspiracy charges under the NDPS.
The NCB did not recover anything from Aryan, but claimed to have recovered 6 gm and 5 gm of ‘charas’ from Merchant and Dhamecha, respectively.
The NCB had heavily relied on the WhatsApp chats between Aryan and Merchant to show that they were involved in an international drug racket.
The investigating agency had also contended that the accused had made a confessional statement before the NCB officer of possessing and consuming drugs. Such a confession amounts to an offence under the NDPS Act, the NCB had argued.
The court, however, clarified that such a confessional statement can be considered by the investigating agency “only for the investigation purpose” and “cannot be used as a tool” to infer that the trio committed an offence under the NDPS Act.
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