MUMBAI: A magistrate court on Friday rejected Bollywood actor Shah Rukh Khan’s son Aryan Khan’s plea for bail on grounds of maintainability and jurisdiction of court. It rejected bail pleas of his friend Arbaaz Merchant, 26, and Munmun Dhamecha, 28, as well.
The court only pronounced the operative part of the order, and reasons will follow later as it was end of court day and dictation would take long. Khan’s counsel Satish Maneshinde said in court that it was fine if the operative part was delivered because if necessary, they would ready themselves to approach sessions court. Later, he declined to comment. But with a weekend ahead, it will be two nights in jail before a fresh bail plea gets taken up for hearing in sessions court.
All three were arrested on October 3 following a raid by the NCB on a cruise ship which led to seizure of drugs. Maneshinde said with “not even an ounce” of contraband found on Khan, he ought not to be denied bail, and with alleged chats on his phone leading up to no recovery, he cannot be kept in custody.
The applications are “not maintainable” before his court, said additional chief metropolitan magistrate R M Nerlikar, after hearing and accepting preliminary objections raised by NCB . NCB special counsel ASG Anil Singh cited judgments, including the one by Bombay HC granting bail to actor Rhea Chakraborty, where it was held all NDPS offences are non-bailable and hence the case is exclusively triable by the special court, which is at the sessions court, rendering the magistrate sans jurisdiction to consider bail.
The sessions court has jurisdiction to hear and grant regular bail and by that virtue also consider a plea for interim bail, while the magistrate can only grant remand, said Singh, adding that on October 7 the court had already forwarded the case to the special sessions court which has jurisdiction. The counsels for the three arrested said not only is the magistrate empowered to grant bail, on merits too they are entitled as NCB has shown no material against them.
Maneshinde said Khan “belongs to a respectable family with roots in society.” “Merely because he is from an influential family, it cannot be a ground to suggest he may tamper with a probe or to deny him bail.” “He is a 23-year-old gentleman, with no antecedents, who happens to be part of Bollywood,” said Maneshinde.
