The Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) did not name Bollywood actor Shah Rukh Khan’s son Aryan in the chargesheet filed in the drug racket case because no drug was recovered from him.
The case was transferred to a special investigation team (SIT) on November 6, 2021 and on Friday SIT chief Sanjay Singh in a press note said, “All accused were found in possession of narcotics except Aryan and Mohak. The touchstone of the principle of proof beyond reasonable doubt has been applied. Based on which a complaint has been filed against 14 accused and a complaint against six (including Aryan Khan) is not filed due to lack of sufficient evidence.”
The investigation, according to SIT, revealed that no drug was recovered from Aryan Khan and also that one of the accused in the case, Arbaaz, linked to Aryan, had never stated that the drug in his possession was for Aryan’s consumption.
The chargesheet stated, “The mobile phone of Aryan was voluntarily handed over by him to the Investigating officer. …such handing over was not followed by formal seizure procedure as laid down in the law. …integrity of data extracted from Aryan’s phone is questionable as there is no seizure memo for the phone to show how and when his phone was seized,” the SIT highlighted.
On October 28, the Bombay High Court had granted bail to Mr Khan and two others after he was arrested on October 3. The court had directed that they be released from Arthur Road Jail after executing a cash bond of Rs 1 lakh with one or more sureties.
The chargesheet is filed against: Arbaaz Merchant, 26; Munmun Dhamecha, 29; Vikrant Chhokar, 32; Mohak Jaswal, 28; Ishmeet Chadha, 33; Gomit Chopra, 28; Nupur Satija, 29; Abdul Kadar Shaikh, 30; Shreyas Nair, 23; Manish Rajgaria, 30; Aachit Kumar, 22; Chinedu Igwe, 27; Shivraj Harijan, 33; Okoro Uzeoma, 40. However, Mr Khan, Avin Sahu, Samir Sehgal, Manav Singhal, Bhaskar Arora, Gopalji Anand were not named in the 6000 page chargesheet.