The Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) has filed a special leave petition before the Supreme Court to challenge the bail granted to late actor Sushant Singh Rajput’s girlfriend Rhea Chakraborty in the drugs case. Justice Sarang Kotwal had granted her bail on last October in the drugs case allegedly linked to a ‘drug angle’ into 34-year-old Rajput’s mysterious death on June 14, last year. The HC had said, “She is not part of’’ of any drug dealer chain, nor was there any recovery from her.
The NCB has sought cancellation of her bail. It filed the SLP on February 19 and it was verified on March 12. The agency had filed a 12000-odd pages chargesheet against her and 32 others on March 5. The NCB had arrested Rhea, 28, on September 8, 2020 and termed her an “active member of a drug syndicate’’ and that it wants to “bust the drug citadel in Mumbai’’. The NCB invoked section 27A of the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act (NDPS) against Rhea and Showik alleging that the siblings “financed the drug procurement’’.
The crime is punishable with minimum 10 years’ imprisonment and maximum 20 years. Bombay HC while releasing Chakraborty on bail had said he was prima facie, neither a financer nor a harbourer under the NDPS Act as both acts require a ‘guilty mind’ or intention, both of which she lacked.
The fresh case by NCB is expected to come up for a hearing before a bench of Chief Justice S A Bobde and Justices A S Bopanna and Rama Subramanian. The likely, computer generated date of hearing is March 18, says the apex court website.
The NCB had alleged that on some occasions Chakraborty used her own money to procure him drugs, she facilitated the purchase through her brother, Showik and also relied on Sushant’s staff. Based on its accusations that she paid for some ganja, NCB painted her as an “active member of a drug syndicate’’ with a large reach.
The HC said her acts, “cannot be stretched’’ to attract the offence of ‘financing and harbouring’. “Spending money in procuring drugs for Sushant will not, therefore mean she had financed illicit traffic,’’ said the HC in its prima facie findings for bail.
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