A Special Narcotics Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act court on Thursday granted 60 days’ extension to the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) to file a charge-sheet in the much-discussed drug-bust case, in which Bollywood superstar Shah Rukh Khan’s son Aryan Khan and others are accused.
Allowing a plea made by Special Public Prosecutor Advait Sethna citing “compelling reasons” for seeking more time to file a charge-sheet in the case, Special NDPS Judge V V Patil granted two months’ additional time to file the charge-sheet in the case.
Under the NDPS Act, the NCB gets 180 days for filing a charge-sheet in a case and in the mid-sea drug bust case, involving Aryan Khan and others, the deadline for filing the charge-sheet was to expire on April 2.
On March 28, the Special Investigation Team (SIT) of the NCB had moved the NDPS Court, seeking 90 days’ additional time to file the charge-sheet in the case stating among other things that it was yet to record the statements of 15 key suspects were yet to be examined for “fair and logical conclusion of the investigation”.
There are in all 20 accused in the case. The NCB told the special court that it was still in process of recording their statements, since many of the accused did not turn up for investigations resulting in an unintentional delay.
It may be recalled that the NCB had arrested Aryan Khan, Arbaaz Merchant, Munmun Dhamecha and five others on October 3, after its officials busted a rave party and seized 13 grams of cocaine, 5 grams of MD (Mephedrone), 21 grams of Charas, 22 pills of MDMA (Ecstasy) and Rs 1.33 lakh in cash from Goa-bound Cordelia Cruises' Empress ship, off the Mumbai coast. Subsequently, the NCB arrested 12 more persons in connection with the mid-sea rave party.
In its plea filed before the special court seeking additional time to file the charge sheet, the NCB had stated: that it was yet to examine panch witness Kiran P Gosavi as it was awaiting permission to interrogate and record his statement and that some of the accused purportedly gave wrong passwords of mobile, laptops and tablets which had resulted in the delay in the extraction of data and forensic examination.
The NCP also told the court that it was trying to find out details of contacts and addresses of the two Nigerian nationals arrested in the case and that the money trail and consideration paid for purchasing drugs was underway
The NCB stated that it had completed its investigation against Mohak Jaswal, Gomit Chopra, Nupur Satija, Abdul Kadar Shaikh, Chinedu Igwe and Okoro Uzeoma, while its investigation against others was still underway.
On their defence lawyers in the case opposed the Prosecution’s plea seeking an extension in time to file charge-sheet, contending that the NCB’s application for time extension was an excuse to continue keeping the detained accused behind bars. They urged the court that the NCB be directed to file a charge-sheet now and that it could file a supplementary charge-sheet later.
While seeking rejection of the Prosecution’s application, the defence lawyers also told the court that the NCB’s application was not compelling enough to be granted extension of time as it had failed to disclose which of the accused were not co-operating with the investigation as alleged.
The defence lawyers also argued that the NCB’s application not only affected two persons in custody but also the 18 others who were out on bail. They also pointed out that the non-receipt of analysis of digital data was not a ground for extension of time to file the charge-sheet.