[Aryan Khan Drug Case] Mumbai court rejects bail plea of Abdul Kadar Shaikh

A special court in Mumbai last week refused to grant bail to Abdul Kadar Shaikh, an alleged drug supplier arrested in the cruise ship drug case in which Aryan Khan, son of Bollywood actor Shahrukh Khan, is the prime accused..According to Special Judge VV Patil, there were no reasonable grounds to believe that Abdul is not guilty of the alleged offences and is unlikely to commit such offences while on bail..Abdul claimed in his plea that the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) had wrongly accused him and that he was not involved in illicit drug trafficking. He claimed that the recovery of the commercial amount of narcotics from him was a sham. His personal search, he claimed, was conducted in breach of Section 50 (conditions under which search of persons shall be conducted) of the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act (NDPS Act) since it was not conducted by a gazetted officer.He further claimed that the NCB wrongfully held him since he was not taken before a court within 24 hours of his arrest. Further, he stated that the prosecution's case is questionable because the arrest paperwork lacked the location of the arrest as well as the signature of a witness.He also brought to the court's notice the fact that he has no criminal antecedents and was willing to follow all of the terms imposed by the court.The accused further stated that two other defendants in the case who faced identical claims had been granted bail..In response, the NCB argued that all of the people detained in the case are inextricably linked in terms of their NDPS Act violations. It testified that their investigation found that the accused had given intermediate amounts of ecstasy to one of the other accused.Concerning Section 50, the NCB said that the accused was informed of his right to be searched by a gazetted official but willingly renounced it.The prosecution relied on the accused's signed arrest document to indicate that he was brought before a magistrate within 24 hours of his arrest and so there was no infringement of his rights..After hearing both parties, the Court determined that the evidence on record was sufficient to establish the accused's participation in the sale of commercial amounts of narcotics.“As discussed above, commercial quantity of 54.3 gms. of MD and 2.5 gms. Ecstasy has been recovered from the applicant/accused. Considering the evidence on record it cannot be said that there are reasonable grounds for believing that applicant/accused no.9 is not guilty of such offence and he is not likely to commit such offence while on bail”, the court stated.As regards, co-accused being granted bail, the Court said that they were discovered with non-commercial amount of contraband.It, therefore, rejected Abdul's application for bail..Advocate Kushal Mor along with advocate Kunal Bilancy appeared for Abdul Kadar Shaikh.Special Public Prosecutor Advait Sethna appeared for the NCB.