A special Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) court on Friday denied bail to actor Rhea Chakraborty, her brother Showik Chakraborty and four others who are co-accused in the drugs case related to the death of actor Sushant Singh Rajput.The siblings’ advocate Satish Maneshide said he would wait to see the court's order before deciding to approach the Bombay High Court to challenge it. The court on Friday also rejected the bail pleas of the other co-accused in the case - Zaid Vilatra, Abdel Basit Parihar, Sushant’s house manager Samuel Miranda and house staff Dipesh Sawant.
The Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) also filed an application before the special court to cancel the bail granted to Kaizan Ebrahim - one of the accused in the case, by a magistrate court. Ebrahim had got bail the very day he was produced before the magistrate after arrest. The agency said in its plea that he had strong links with the co-accused.Rhea had filed her bail plea a day after she was arrested on September 8 by the NCB, following three days of questioning. She had been produced before a magistrate court on the day of her arrest through video-conferencing and the magistrate had rejected her bail plea.
Thereafter, in her bail plea before the sessions court the following day, she had said that she feared for her life in jail, as she had been receiving hundreds of rape and death threats for the past several months. She also said in her plea that the allegations against her were for a 'small quantity' of drugs, as classified under the NDPS Act and these were bailable offences, punishable by a maximum of one year in prison and she was entitled to bail. She had pointed out that section 27A of the NDPS Act, which pertains to financing illicit trafficking of drugs and harbouring offenders, had been applied only on her brother Showik and her. This had not been applied to the co-accused, though similar allegations have been made against them by the agency, she contended. Some of her co-accused, even those from whom small quantities of drugs were seized (total 59 gms of ganja), had been granted bail, she had said. The agency had opposed bail pleas of both her and her brother Showik.
Opposing Showik’s bail plea, the agency had said, citing the drugs seized from co-accused that it made a case for commercial quantity of drugs under the NDPS Act and hence the argument of small quantity did not stand. LSD was seized from one of the co-accused. The NCB also called Showik an 'active member of the drug syndicate' who used to manage drug procurement along with Sushant Singh and was 'party to deep-rooted criminal conspiracy'.
The agency said he had been booked under section 27A, which is a non-bailable offence punishable by up to 20 years' imprisonment and that as per the provisions of the NDPS Act, to grant bail for someone charged under this section, the court would need to have a prima-facie opinion that they were not guilty of the offences. Finally, the NCB said that if released on bail, Showik was likely to tamper with evidence and sway witnesses by using his position in society and money power.
