Cruise ship drug bust case: No bail yet for Aryan, hearing to continue today

Mumbai: The Bombay High Court would on Wednesday continue hearing on bail applications of Bollywood actor Shah Rukh Khan's son Aryan Khan and two other persons arrested by the NCB following alleged drug seizure from a cruise ship off the Mumbai coast earlier this month.

Aryan (23), meanwhile, distanced himself from an allegation of extortion attempt against the NCB's zonal director Sameer Wankhede who had supervised the raid on the ship on October 2. Aryan's lawyers Mukul Rohatgi and Satish Maneshinde argued before Justice N W Sambre that the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) had no evidence against him.

"Aryan has no complaints whatsoever against any officer of the NCB including its zonal director Sameer Wankhede. Aryan is not concerned with these unsavoury controversies. He completely denies any relation to this," senior counsel Rohatgi also told the court.

The NCB and Wankhede on Monday had said the allegations were part of vendetta by a political leader whose son-in-law had been arrested by the NCB in the past, the lawyer said.

"But today, the NCB is putting this on Aryan Khan and saying he is tampering with witnesses. This is affecting my client's case," Rohatgi argued.

He contended that the "legislative intent" behind the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act under which Aryan and others were arrested was reformation in cases involving small quantities of drugs. The Act intends that young persons be treated as victims and not as accused, he added.

Aryan Khan is a "young boy with no prior antecedents," Rohatgi added.

"The legislative intent of the NDPS Act is clear about this. Section 64A of the Act provides immunity to those persons who have been accused of possessing small quantities. "If these persons are agreeable to be sent to rehab then that should be allowed. Aryan's case is not even of possession or consumption," Rohatgi said, adding he cannot be held responsible for some other person's alleged possession of drugs. Sameer Wankhede,visited the agency's headquarters here on Tuesday and spent over two hours. A five-member team of the Narcotics Control Bureau's vigilance department will question Wankhede on Wednesday in connection with allegations of 'extortion' levelled against him.