Mumbai: Mumbai Court on Friday rejected bail application of Bollywood actor Shah Rukh Khan's son Aryan Khan in the Mumbai drug seizure case.
The court also turned down the bail plea of Arbaaz Merchant and Munmun Dhamecha holding that the applications were 'not maintainable'.
On Thursday, the court had relieved Aryan Khan from the custody of Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB).
Aryan is to be lodged in jail, the Mumbai court had said. The court added that sufficient time had been granted to the agency for custodial interrogation.
Aryan and the seven other accused will be transferred to jail from the NCB office after conducting the mandatory Covid test.
Family members will be allowed to visit the accused.
The accused were sent to 14-day judicial custody in connection with the alleged seizure of banned drugs from a cruise ship off the Mumbai coast on Thursday.
The NCB had sought an extension of their custody, but the request was not granted.
Custody cannot be granted on vague grounds, noted a magistrate court on Thursday while rejecting the NCB's plea.
The NCB made a strong plea for an extension of custody of Aryan Khan, 23, and the other accused, saying they need to be confronted with another man arrested in the case to unearth the "chain of conspiracy".
Aryan Khan and two other accused Munmun Dhamecha and Arbaaz Merchant were arrested by the NCB on October 3 following a raid on the Goa-bound cruise ship off the Mumbai coast.
They were first remanded in one-day NCB custody which was later extended till October 7 by the court. The other five were arrested on October 4 and remanded in NCB custody till October 7.
They all were produced before Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate R M Nerlikar at the end of their earlier remand. The drug law enforcement agency sought extension of their custody till October 11. The NCB told the court they have arrested one Acchit Kumar based on statements given by Aryan Khan and Merchant.
The custody of Khan and others was required to confront them with Kumar for unearthing the "chain of conspiracy", it said. Judge, after hearing the arguments put forth by advocates of all the accused, said the gist of the NCB plea is that it requires the custody of the accused to confront them with Kumar.
Kumar was arrested on Wednesday evening. He was produced before the court on Thursday and remanded in NCB custody till October 9.
The court said considering the time of Kumar's arrest, when both Aryan and Kumar were in NCB custody and till his production before the court, nothing was investigated.
Further, it was rightly argued by defence advocates that the investigating agency was required to give details of probe conducted so far, but the same was not reflected in their remand extension application, it said.
The court mentioned that custody cannot be granted without a "cogent reason". The probe agency's remand application doesn't disclose sufficient ground to grant (further) custody of the accused. "The ground mentioned are vague and custody cannot be granted based on vague grounds," the judged noted.
Sufficient time was given to the probe agency (for custodial interrogation of the accused), the court said and rejected its plea for remand extension.
In a related development, Sameer Wankhede, Zonal Director, NCB, requested the court to keep the accused at the probe agency's office in the city as jail doesn't admit prisoners without COVID-19 test report.
The court granted the request as no objection was raised by the defence. Based on a tip-off that a party was scheduled on the ship, an NCB team, led by Wankhede, raided the Goa-bound 'Cordelia' cruise ship on Saturday evening and allegedly recovered drugs.
(With inputs from PTI)
