No conspiracy or objectionable chats: HC in Aryan bail order

‘Trio Already Behind Bars For 25 Days’

- Swati Deshpande

Mumbai: WhatsApp chats extracted from the mobile phone of Aryan Khan disclose “nothing objectionable” nor is there any evidence to show he and his friend Arbaaz Merchant or Munmun Dhamecha and other co-accused had hatched any conspiracy to commit drug offences, and they had already been behind bars for 25 days, said the Bombay high court in its reasoned order for granting them bail on October 28 made available on Saturday.

“Applicants were not even subjected to medical examination so as to determine whether at the relevant time, they had consumed drugs,” said Justice Nitin Sambre, whose reasons for giving bail came a month after special NDPS judge VV Patil at sessions court had found the same chats showing “reference to bulk quantity and hard drugs”.

It is not in dispute that Khan (23), son of actor Shah Rukh Khan, was not found in possession of any drug, the reasoned order read. Nor is it in dispute that the quantity of drugs allegedly seized from Merchant (26) and Dhamecha (28), to whom too HC granted bail, “is small quantity”.

The Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) had arrested the trio on October 3 following its October 2 raid at the city’s international cruise terminal.

The NCB had said it seized 6gm of charas from Merchant at the terminal gate. Merchant, it said, planned to smoke it and since he was travelling with Khan, it was in Khan’s “conscious possession”. Five grams of hashish was seized from Dhamecha’s cabin.

‘THERE WAS NO MEETING OF MINDS’