The Bombay high court will on Friday dictate the judgment in open court after granting bail to Aryan Khan, the son of actor Shah Rukh Khan, arrested by the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) in the drugs raid case.
Aryan Khan will be able to walk out of the Arthur Road jail, where he is currently lodged under judicial custody, only the court gives its operative order on the conditions imposed while granting bail. The legal team of the 23-year-old Aryan Khan will now try to complete the formalities for his release by Friday or Saturday.
A single bench of Justice NW Sambre also granted bail to Aryan Khan’s co-accused Arbaaz Merchant and Munmun Dhamecha.
“All three applications are allowed. I will pass detailed orders by tomorrow evening,” Justice Sambre said on Thursday even as Aryan Khan’s counsel Mukul Rohatgi was putting forth his arguments.
Aryan Khan’s lawyers then sought permission to submit cash bail but the court refused it and said surety is to be given. Hearing on their bail applications started on Tuesday.
“I could have given the order tomorrow also. But I gave it today,” Justice Sambre said.
Aryan Khan has already spent 25 days at the Arthur Road jail in Mumbai, along with Merchant, for alleged consumption of drugs and alleged conspiracy under the stringent Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act. Dhamecha was lodged at the Byculla women prison on similar charges.
“It was a hard and tough battle after lost in the first court. This case was a cynosure of all eyes in the country and people were eagerly waiting for the result,” the former attorney general of India Mukul Rohatgi, who represented Aryan in the high court, told reporters outside the court.
Aryan was arrested by NCB on October 3, a day after NCB official Sammer Wankhede led a raid on the cruise ship docked off the Mumbai coast. Wankhede said that 13 grams of cocaine, 5 grams of mephedrone, 21 grams of charas, 22 pills of MDMA (ecstasy), and ₹1.33 lakh in cash were recovered from the ship.
He also claimed that Aryan was linked to international drug cartels, and therefore needed to remain in custody.
Meanwhile, the NCB’s special enquiry team (SET) has asked Prabhakar Sail, an independent witness who has alleged extortion attempt by the agency’s officials in the drugs bust case, to appear before it on Friday, an official release said.
NCB deputy director general Gyaneshwar Singh on Thursday wrote a letter to the Mumbai Police commissioner asking the police to convey to Sail that he should appear before the SET “any time after 10 am for recording his statement and submitting evidence” it said.
Mumbai Police, who are probing allegations of extortion against NCB zonal director Sameer Wankhede and others following Aryan Khan’s arrest in the drug seizure case, have recorded Sail’s statement.