Sushant Singh Rajput Case: Court rejects Bail plea of Rhea, Showik and 4 others

On Friday, a Special Court constituted under the Narcotic Drugs & Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act rejected the Bail pleas of Rhea Chakraborty, her brother Showik & 4 other persons arrested by the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) for their alleged involvement in a drugs case allegedly linked to Rajput’s death.

Along with Rhea & Showik, other accused persons—actor Sushant Singh Rajput’s house manager Samuel Miranda, house help Dipesh Sawant, Bandra residents Zaid Vilatra & Abdel Basit Parihar—had moved the Court for bail.

Rhea & Showik’s counsel Satish Maneshinde confirmed that the Court rejected the bail plea of all 6 persons.

Rhea, in her plea, had said that she was innocent & falsely implicated. Rhea & her brother Showik have been booked under Section 27A of the NDPS Act—financing illicit traffic & harbouring offenders.

The defence raised the issue of applicability of charges of Section 27A of the NDPS Act against the 2. In Rhea’s plea, the defence said, “The allegations against the present accused would at the most make out a case of purchasing small quantity of drug, which is in essence a bailable offence. There is not a shred of evidence to connect the applicant with financing any illicit traffic or harbouring any offender, & hence the ingredients of Section 27A of the NDPS Act are not made out in present facts & circumstances.”

Further, the defence also claimed that even though the role attributed to Rhea & her brother Showik is identical to that of another accused, Kaizan Ebrahim, NCB selectively invoked charges of Section 27A only against Rhea & Showik. Ebrahim was released on provisional cash bail on the very first day of his remand by the Magistrate Court, the defence pointed out.

The petitions were opposed by the prosecution, alleging that all the persons accused are connected & each case can't be looked at in isolation. Atul Sarpande, the special public prosecutor appearing for NCB, however, countered the argument & said that the agency will move the Court to cancel Ebrahim’s bail on Friday. Sarpande added that the agency had recovered 0.5 gram of hashish from him.

Sarpande also said that the probe was at a crucial stage & releasing the accused persons on bail may hamper the probe.

Sarpande said that “We have opposed the bail pleas because, in this case, the quantity of the drug is not important; instead, the gravity of the offence is more important. All the accused are connected to each other, are involved in the conspiracy, & cannot be separated from the case".

The agency said that the quantity of the entire contraband seized from all the accused persons, as per law, becomes commercial, in which case, the offence is non-bailable. 

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