As Aryan Khan's bail application in the Mumbai cruise drugs case gets postponed again, NCP leader and minister Nawab Malik's son-in-law Sameer Khan was granted bail, citing lack of evidence, after eight and a half months on 27 September.
In view of the delay in the bail process, Malik launched a scathing attack on the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) on Thursday, 14 October, accusing the drug agency of implicating his son-in-law in a fake drugs case.
Meanwhile, the NCB reportedly approached the Bombay High Court for cancellation of Khan's bail order released on Wednesday, 13 October.
Reacting to this, the NCP leader has said he will challenge the plea, and bring more exploits of NCB to the fore.
Khan was arrested by the NCB on 13 January 2021 after the NCB claimed that he was part of a big drugs cartel.
Addressing a press conference on Thursday, Malik presented the court's bail order. Here is what the bail order said.
The Bail Order
In the bail order uploaded on the court's portal, the court noted that the 194.265 kg of allegedly illegal substances recovered during the investigation were chemically tested.
As per the Chemical Analysis (CA) report, 11 out of 18 samples had no traces of cannabis. Only 1199.5 gram os substances recovered were positive in the drug report, which is undoubtedly less than the commercial quantity needed to implicate someone under section 27A (Drug trafficking) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC.)
Further, the order said that in view of the suspect's admission of being in the tobacco business, a prima facie case of criminal mentality, intention, preparation or commission cannot be made.
The order stated, "It is evident that when the CA report relied upon by the prosecution is negative, no charge under section 27 A can be sustained," PTI reported.
Khan has been asked to pay a bond of Rs 50,000 and directed to not leave Mumbai without the permission of the court.
(With inputs from PTI)
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