The brother of actor Rhea Chakraborty, Showik Chakraborty, 24, one of the first to be arrested by the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) in September in the drugs case related to the death of actor and Rhea’s then partner Sushant Singh Rajput, was granted bail by a special court on Wednesday.
Another co-accused in the case - Abdel Basit Parihar - was also granted bail. The NCB had relied on the statements of Parihar and some others, to arrest Showik. Both have been released on identical bail conditions - a provisional cash bail of Rs. 50,000, bonds and sureties. Both have to regularly attend the NCB office for the next six months and deposit their passports with the agency.
This second bail plea before the special Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act (NDPS) court was made early last month. In his plea, Showik had claimed, as per an apex court ruling of October 29, any confessional statements made to NCB officers could not be taken into account to convict an accused under the NDPS Act and would not be admissible as evidence. “In view of the above judgment...there has been an obvious change of circumstance which would warrant a fresh consideration of the applicant’s right to be enlarged on bail,” was the plea made by Showik through his advocate Satish Maneshinde.
In the present case, where the prosecution is relying almost solely on the statements of the co-accused to sustain the case against Showik, the plea said, the observations of the Supreme Court would attack the very foundation of the case.
Showik’s first bail plea before the special court early after his arrest had been rejected by the same court on September 11. Thereafter, he had moved the Bombay High Court, where too he had not managed to secure bail, his plea being rejected by the HC on October 7.
Showik was arrested on September 4 by the Central agency. He was arrested by the agency on the disclosure of co-accused Abdel Basit Parihar, who himself was arrested on the alleged statement of another co-accused, Zaid Vilatra. Basit had, in his statement to the agency, said he had procured drugs from Zaid and co-accused Kaizan Ebrahim on the instructions of Showik Chakraborty and got them delivered to Samuel Miranda - Sushant’s house manager, again as per Showik’s instructions. ReplyForward
