Bollywood actor Rhea Chakraborty’s judicial custody was on Tuesday extended till October 6 by a special Narcotics Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act, 1985, court. Chakraborty was arrested by the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) on September 8 for her alleged involvement in a drugs case linked to Sushant Singh Rajput’s death on June 14. Before this, she was remanded to 14-day judicial custody.
According to news agency ANI, Chakraborty and Showik moved bail applications in the Bombay High Court in connection with the drug case related to Rajput’s death. Her lawyer Satish Manshinde said the matter will come up for hearing on Wednesday and the details of the application will be shared after the hearing, ANI added.
The 28-year-old was arrested on the basis of statements from other accused who have been arrested in connection with the case. She was confronted with Showik, Rajput’s house manager Samuel Miranda and his house staff Dipesh Sawant to ascertain their roles in an alleged drug racket.A special court had denied bail to Chakraborty on September 11, saying if she was released on bail she might alert others and they might destroy evidence. In her plea, Chakraborty had stated that she was innocent and falsely implicated. She has been booked under several sections of the NDPS act.
Chakraborty has been charged under Section 8(c) (produce, manufacture, possess, sell, purchase, transport, warehouse, use, consume, import); 20(b)(ii) (punishment for contravention in relation to the cannabis plant and cannabis where such contravention relates to small quantity, involves quantity lesser than commercial quantity but greater than small quantity, involves commercial quantity); 22 (punishment for contravention in relation to psychotropic substances); 27A (punishment for financing illicit traffic and harbouring offenders); 28 (punishment for attempts to commit offences); and 29 (punishment for abetment and criminal conspiracy) of the NDPS act.
Dozens of people, including Chakraborty, her brother Showik, and drug peddlers from Mumbai and Goa have been arrested and questioned by the agency so far.
The special NDPS court had also rejected the bail plea of alleged drug peddler Abdul Basit Parihar, Zaid Vilatra, Rajput’s personal staff Sawant and Rhea’s associate Miranda, who were also arrested by NCB in the case.
Three other accused -- Sawant, Miranda and Parihar -- have already filed their bail pleas before the high court. Bombay High Court had last week adjourned the hearings on the bail pleas of three accused to September 29.
NCB had launched an investigation after it received communication from Enforcement Directorate (ED), in which there were various chats related to drug consumption, procurement, usage and transportation in connection with the Sushant Singh Rajput death case.ED had registered an Enforcement Case Information Report in the late actor’s death case on July 31 after a first information report (FIR) was filed by Rajput’s father KK Singh against Rhea Chakraborty in Bihar on July 28.
Rajput was found dead at his residence in Mumbai’s Bandra on June 14.