The Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) filed a 6,000 page charge sheet on Friday against 14 accused in the cruise drug bust case, excluding the names of five others which included actor Shah Rukh Khan’s son Aryan Khan, who had been arrested earlier in the case.
Aryan Khan’s lawyer Satish Maneshinde said, “Aryan Khan was not named in the chargesheet and his arrest along with imprisonment for 26 days was wrong, especially when no drugs of any kind were found from him.”
“There was no evidence of any kind, there was no material of any nature in violation of any law, except the NDPS Act. We are glad that Sanjay Kumar Singh, heading the NCB SIT, investigated the matter properly and decided not to file a complaint against Aryan Khan due to lack of sufficient evidence,” he added.
However, citing a lack of evidence, the NCB today dropped the drugs charges against Aryan Khan, reported ANI.
NCB chief S N Pradhan said that the WhatsApp chats held “no value” without physical evidences.
He said, “There should be physical corroboration of WhatsApp chat. Courts have clarified that WhatsApp chat, in itself, holds no value. You can talk about anything on WhatsApp but if not corroborated with physical evidence, it's not complete evidence.”
Pradhan also said that there should be beyond any reasonable doubt that the officials did not find any such evidence.
“The principle of preponderance and probability is not applicable to NDPS Act. There should be beyond a reasonable doubt, that we did not find such evidence,” he said.
Meanwhile, former NCB official Sameer Wankhede did not comment on the development saying that he is not part of the agency anymore and will only give a written reply if asked.
It may be noted that a team of the drugs enforcement agency had raided the Cordelia Cruise ship on its way to Goa at mid-sea on October 2 and busted an alleged drugs party.
As many as 20 people were arrested including Aryan Khan and other accused like Arbaaz Merchant and Munmun Dhamecha in the case.
The trio of Aryan Khan, Arbaaz Merchant and Munmun Dhamecha had been granted bail by the Bombay High Court on October 28, last year.
