Mumbai: After hearing the arguments for over seven hours, the Bombay High Court on Tuesday reserved its judgment on the applications filed by actress Rhea Chakraborty, her brother Showik and other accused and arrested for procuring drugs for late actor Sushant Singh Rajput.
The bench of Justice Sarang Kotwal heard the arguments of NCB, Rhea's counsel Satish Maneshinde and advocate Taraq Sayed, who appeared for other accused in the case.
Opening the arguments, Sayed said that there was no enough material to prosecute all the 19 persons named as accused in the case.
"All these persons come from reputed and respected families. Most of them are young students. The NCB has only said that they all procured and delivered drugs to Sushant for his consumption," Sayed argued, adding that the anti-drugs agency has not claimed that any of these persons have consumed drugs.
"The only case is of procuring drugs for Sushant, who is no more and was the only consumer. The point is, how is the agency going to prove there was a supply of drugs when he (Sushant) is not here," the advocate argued.
Sayed, however, did not deny his clients consuming drugs. "Sometimes at this young age, the youngsters indeed do somethings that they should not. At the most, it would be a case of consumption and no conspiracy. Thus, the NCB is wrong in claiming this to be cartel," the counsel submitted.
Meanwhile, Anil Singh, additional solicitor general for NCB, argued that even if there is no recovery from any of these accused, that would not obstruct the agency from probing the case.
"We have to go to the roots of this cartel and clean all the sectors be it schools, colleges or Bollywood. Just because there are youngsters, in this case, won't mean we should be sympathetic. There is a need to teach them a lesson," ASG Singh argued, adding that celebrities cannot be let go easily since they are the role models for youngsters.
Advocate Satish Maneshinde too argued on the lines of Sayed and said that the NCB had no material to prosecute his clients.
