Rhea gets bail, Showik's plea rejected in Sushant Singh Rajput case

The Bombay High Court has granted conditional bail to Bollywood actress Rhea Chakraborty, and two others, but rejected the bail plea of her brother Showik, her lawyer Satish Maneshinde said.

Justice SV Kotwal, who had completed the hearing on the bail applications on September 29 and reserved his ruling, pronounced the much-anticipated order this morning.

The court granted bail of Rs 1 lakh to Rhea, and for Rs 50,000 each to Dipesh Sawant and Samuel Miranda. However, Justice Kotwal rejected the bail pleas by Showik Chakraborty and Abdul Basit Parihar.

The five accused had sought bail from the high court after the Special NDPS Court here rejected their applications last month. They were among the 20 arrested by the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) in connection with the drugs angle probe into the death of Bollywood actor Sushant Singh Rajput.

Arrested by the NCB late night on September 8 in the drug-related case, Rhea has spent 28 days in custody to date, though she was sent to extended judicial custody by a Special NDPS Court till October 20, on Tuesday.

Additional Solicitor-General Anil Singh, appearing on behalf of NCB pleaded for a stay on the operation of the order, but Justice Kotwal declined it.

Rhea and Showik's advocate Maneshinde, and lawyers for the other co-accused Rajendra Rathod, Tariq Sayed, and Subhodh Desai had strongly argued in the case of bail for their clients.

Among other things, they contended that the NCB lacked jurisdiction to probe the matter in view of the Supreme Court order of August 19, directing to hand over all investigations in the Sushant case to the CBI, and that the offenses under which the accused were nabbed by the NCB were bailable and the charges under the NDPS Act Section 217A against the accused did not have supporting evidence.

Countering the defense lawyers' arguments, Singh maintained that the NCB had jurisdiction in the probe and had sufficient evidence to prove that the accused were part of a larger narcotics syndicate.