Superstar Shah Rukh Khan son Aryan Khan, Arbaaz Merchant and model Munmun Dhamecha, breathed sigh of relief on October 28 after they were granted bail by The Bombay High Court. It released the detailed order on Saturday and said that there was “hardly any positive evidence” to show conspiracy between the accused as alleged by the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB).
The court further pointed out that “nothing objectionable” was noticed in the WhatsApp chats allegedly recovered from Aryan’s phone to suggest that there was a conspiracy, reported Indian Express.
The recent observations were shared by a single bench of Justice Nitin Sambre who had granted bail to the three on October 28.
For the unversed, the three were arrested on October 2 after a raid on a cruise by the NCB. The 14-page order was made available Saturday.
“There is hardly any positive evidence on record to convince this Court that all the accused persons with common intention agreed to commit unlawful act. Rather the investigation carried out till this date suggests that Applicant/Accused nos. 1 & 2 (Aryan and Merchant respectively) were travelling independent of Applicant/Accused no. 3 (Dhamecha) and there was no meeting of minds on the aforesaid issue,” the court said.
The court also argued that there has to be some positive evidence about an agreement to do an unlawful act or to do lawful act by unlawful means. Such agreement shall precede with meeting of minds, reported Indian Express.
To note, during the raid no drugs were recovered from Aryan and allegedly small quantities of drugs (charas) were recovered from Merchant and Dhamecha.
The NCB had said that all the accused, including others from whom a commercial quantity of drugs were found, were “linked in conspiracy” to commit offences under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act and hence drug recovery in the case should be considered cumulatively.
The court later reportedly ruled that there is no material to infer that the three hatched a conspiracy to commit offence or that there was any meeting of minds with other accused arrested in the case.
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