Judgment Granting Bail To Rhea Chakraborty Has Far-Reaching Consequences On NDPS Act Rendering It Meaningless: Centre Tells Supreme Court

  • Lawbeat News Network
  • 12:55 PM, 18 Mar 2021

Read Time: 05 minutes

The Centre informed Supreme Court on Thursday that it was not on the issue of grant of bail in the case for which it had moved Top Court against the Regular Bail granted to  actress Rhea Chakraborty in the drugs case related to Sushant Singh Rajput’s death but on the aspects related to findings of the Bombay High Court in the Order.

A bench comprising Chief Justice SA Bobde, Justices AS Bopanna & V. Ramasubramaniun took up the plea by NCB and was informed by Solicitor General Tushar Mehta that the Bombay High Court's Judgment had far-reaching consequences which made the NDPS Act meaningless.

To this, the CJI orally observed that the findings were related specifically to the findings of the case.

Following this brief exchange, the Court has decided to hear the case next week.

On 7 October, 2020, the Bombay High Court had granted bail to the actress and directed her to deposit a personal bond of Rs 1 lakh. However, the bail plea's of her brother Showik Chakraborty and Abdel Basit Parihar were rejected.

Actor Sushant Singh Rajput was found dead in his apartment on June 14 last year, following which a series of events took place. Actress Rhea Chakraborty was accused of harbouring drugs to Rajput alongwith others and she was arrested on September 8, 2020. She remained in custody until the Bombay High Court granted her bail.

The Bombay high Court observed,

 "She is not part of drug dealers. She has not forwarded the drugs allegedly procured by her to somebody else to earn monetary or other benefits. Since she has no criminal antecedents, there are reasonable grounds for believing that she is not likely to commit any offence while on bail.... The material at the highest shows that she has committed an offence involving contraband, but, the crucial element of incurring rigours of Section 37 in respect of commercial quantity is missing", the Court observed.

The Court further observed that there was no basis for the Special Court's order denying her bail on the ground that she might destroy evidence.

"The learned Special Judge has observed that the Applicant may alert others and evidence can be destroyed by them. There is no basis for such observation. It is also important to note that when the Applicant was produced before the Court for her first remand, the investigating agency did not seek her custody. That means, they are satisfied with her interrogation and she had cooperated in that investigation"