Denied bail, Aryan Khan moves Bombay High Court

Case pertains to drug racket busted on a cruise on October 2

Bollywood actor Shahrukh Khan's son Aryan Khan, 23, who will continue to be lodged at the Arthur Road Jail, was arrested by the Narcotics Control Bureau after it raided a cruise on October 2, 2021.

Actor Shah Rukh Khan’s son Aryan Khan on Wednesday moved the Bombay High Court after a special court under the Narcotics Drugs Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act rejected his bail in the case of the busting of a drug racket on a cruise on October 2.

The appeal of Mr. Aryan Khan (23) in the High Court is expected to be heard on Thursday. Mr. Khan, who is lodged at the Arthur Road Jail, was arrested on October 3 by the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) after the cruise raid.

Special Judge V.V. Patil also rejected the bail pleas of Arbaaz Merchant, 26, and Munmun Dhamecha, 39 arrested with him.

Mr. Khan had sought bail through senior advocate Amit Desai on the grounds that there has been no recovery of possession of contraband found from him.

He has a role: NCB

Additional Solicitor General Anil Singh, for the NCB, has opposed Mr. Khan’s bail, saying: “Mr. Khan has a role in illicit procurement and consumption of contraband. It is prima facie revealed that he used to procure contraband from Mr. Merchant and the sources connected to him from whose conscious possession six grams of charas was recovered.”

On October 2, the agency seized 13 grams of cocaine, five grams of MD (mephedrone), 21 grams of charas, 22 pills of MDMA (ecstasy) and ₹1,33,000 in cash at the International Cruise Terminal, Mumbai.

Mr. Khan, along with eight others, has been charged with sections 8 (c) - prohibition to produce, manufacture, possess, sell, purchase, transport, warehouse, use, consume, import inter-State, export inter-State, import into India, export from India or tran-ship any narcotic drug or psychotropic substance, 20 (b) - punishment for contravention in relation to cannabis plant and cannabis produces, manufactures, possesses, sells, purchases, transports, imports inter-State, exports inter-State or uses cannabis, 27 - punishment for consumption of any narcotic drug or psychotropic substance, 28 - punishment for attempts to commit offences and 29 - punishment for abetment and criminal conspiracy read with 35 - presumption of culpable mental state of the NDPS Act.