After eight months in prison, Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) leader Nawab Mailk’s son-in-law Sameer Khan on Monday got bail from a special Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act court, along with two co-accused, celebrity manager Rahila Furniturewala and businessman Karan Sajnani.
Special Judge AA Joglekar released Khan on a bond of Rs. 50,000. He is prohibited from leaving Mumbai without the court’s permission and has been asked to surrender his passport. Furniturewala was released on a bond of Rs. 50,000 and Sajnani on that of Rs. 1 lakh.
The NCB had arrested Khan in January this year. On secret information, the agency had raided a courier firm where a suspicious parcel was received. Its sender was Sajnani. The NCB claims the parcel contained Ganja and searched Sanjani’s Khar residence, where huge stock of the drug was allegedly again recovered. The UK national during interrogation is said to have named Khan.
Khan had claimed bail on the grounds that as per the chemical analysis report of the recovered material, attached by the NCB with the chargesheet, only 7.5 gms of the material seized showed a positive result for Ganja.
Most of the samples showed to be a vegetative part of the cannabis plant which does not fall within the ambit of the NDPS Act.
His plea had further stated that at the most he could be tried for small quantity of ganja for which the maximum punishment is a year in jail, of which he had already served a significant portion.
Khan had also contended that there was no drug recovered from him and that he was not aware of the activities of Sajnani. He said Sajnani had sought financial help from him and that he was under the impression that the entrepreneur dealt with tobacco products and wanted to introduce a new product in the market.
