Kannada cinema drugs case | HC declines to grant bail to actors Ragini, Sanjana and others

The High Court of Karnataka on Tuesday declined to grant bail and anticipatory bail to two Kannada film actors, Ragini Dwivedi and Archana alias Sanjjanaa Manohar Galrani, and four others allegedly involved in a drug racket case being probed by the Central Crime Branch (CCB) of the Bengaluru city police.

Justice Sreenivas Harish Kumar passed the order while dismissing the separate petitions filed by Ragini (accused number two in the first information report registered on September 4, 2020), Sanjjanaa (accused number 14), and Prashanth Ranka (accused number four) seeking their enlargement on bail.

The Special Court for the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances cases had on September 28 rejected their plea for grant of bail. All the three accused are in judicial custody.

No advance bail

Meanwhile, the High Court declined to grant anticipatory bail to Shivapraksh (accused number one), Abhiswami (accused number 10), and Prashanth Raju G. (accused number eight), who have sought advance bail apprehending their arrest by the CCB based on their names in the FIR.

Before trial court

The Special Court, while rejecting the bail pleas of Ragini and Sanjjanaa, had observed that “the apprehension of prosecution that petitioners may abscond and tamper evidence could not be ruled out”.

It was contended on behalf the CCB before the Special Court that Ragini and Sanjjanaa had direct contact with drug peddlers across the country and abroad and were part of a WhatsApp group for sharing messages.

It was also alleged by the CCB that both Ragini and Sanjjanaa had deleted various chat messages from their mobiles and did not cooperate with the investigation.

The CCB had specifically alleged before the trial court that Sanjjanaa was part of a WhatsApp group, members of which used to party consuming drugs, and she had deleted the group soon after the arrest of one of the accused in the case.

In case of Ragini, the CCB had alleged that the investigating officer had collected call records of her conversing with Loom Pepper, a Senegalese national who has been arraigned as accused number seven, asking him deliver drugs to various places in Bengaluru. Both Ragini and Sanjjanaa had neither shared passwords of their mobile phones with the investigating officer nor gave blood samples for medical examination.