Aryan Khan Bail [LIVE UPDATES from Bombay High Court]

The Bombay High Court will continue hearing the bail plea filed by Aryan Khan, son of Bollywood actor Shahrukh Khan in the cruise ship drug case.Justice Nitin Sambre heard arguments made by Senior Advocate and former Attorney General for India Mukul Rohatgi on behalf of Aryan Khan yesterday.Khan's plea for bail was earlier rejected by the Magistrate and Sessions Court after which he filed the present appeal before the High Court.Read Live Updates from the Bombay High Court below..Arguments on behalf of Aryan Khan by Senior Advocate Mukul Rohatgi concluded yesterday. Senior Advocate Amit Desai will resume arguments today on behalf of co-accused Arbaaz Merchant..Khan’s bail application is listed at item number 37 of the hearing board of Justice Nitin Sambre. He is presently hearing item number 22 and is likely to rise for lunch at 2 pm. There are no 'kept back' matters today. .There is comparatively lesser crowd inside the courtroom today in comparison to yesterday, although there is more police staff deployed at the door and they are regulating the crowd going inside the courtroom. .Scenes outside the court.Justice Sambre has risen for lunch.Post lunch he will continue hearing matters serially. He has two matters kept back now..The Court will be presiding shortly and lawyers are being let in by serial numbers. Reporters are also waiting to be allowed inside..Justice Sambre has presided and is now hearing kept back matters. .Scenes outside Justice Sambre’s court. Two lines created for lawyers and reporters. Lawyers are being allowed inside based on their serial numbers and reporters will be let in a few cases before the Aryan Khan case reaches..Reporters have been let in. Justice Sambre has finished kept back and now hearing the regular board..Aryan Khan is Item 37 and the Court is currently hearing Item 25..Additional Solicitor General (ASG) Anil Singh has come to Court. He is accompanied with Advocate Shreeram Shirsat and Special Public Prosecutor (SPP) Advait Sethna..Item Number 32 is currently going on before Justice Sambre. Aryan Khan is listed as Item Number 37..Senior Advocate Mukul Rohatgi with Advocate Satish Maneshinde have also arrived. Justice Sambre is now hearing Item number 33..Senior Advocate Amit Desai starts arguing for Arbaaz Merchant..Sr. Adv. Amit Desai: Yesterday I was on the incident of arrest, and I was reading the arrest memo..Sr. Adv. Desai: Your Lordships will notice that in the afternoon October 3, all these three people have been arrested for identical offences without Section 27A and 29 and they were arrested only for 20(b) and 27..Sr. Adv. Desai: What it means is on the assessment of the material, the mobile phone and all, the reason I believe is that they had come there only for consumption..Sr. Adv. Desai: Section 27 and 20(b) was for consumption that is what is there in the arrest memo. If there was no conspiracy on assessment then the punishment was for a year and there was interse no conspiracy..Sr. Adv. Desai: The person who arrested them treated them unconnected with each other and treated individually and wanted to go to the cruise and consume. .Sr. Adv. Desai: If these are three individuals doing individual act, then what should have been the action punishable under 14(1)(a). The Cr.P.C. provides for offences of this type. Section 41(a) of Cr.P.C....Sr. Adv. Desai reads out Arnesh Kumar judgment.The scope of S. 41A was considered at great length. And yesterday what was sought to be pointed out is that the arrest was illegal. Para 5 of Arnesh Kumar is important..Sr. Adv. Amit Desai: Law is - bail is the rule and jail is exception, now it is arrest is the rule and bail is exception..Sr. Adv. Desai is now reading Section 51 of the Cr.P.C. and submits Baldev Singh judgment..Sr. Adv. Amit Desai is now reading Andhra Pradesh judgement in which the Court was considering whether 41A applies to NDPS Act.Section 41A applies to NDPS Act which are punishable with imprisonment of less than 7 years..Sr. Adv. Desai: After due application of mind, 3 people were arrested under 20(b) and 27, but what was the need to arrest them? There was no conspiracy. So what was the need. .Sr. Adv. Desai: As per Arnesh judgment, if there is violation of 41A they must be released. The second part now. What was the next event? 2 PM, they were arrested and 7 PM, they were produced..Sr. Adv. Desai: There is nobody arrested or produced before the Court as of now. But the remand application does not talk of conspiracy, later it says 8 people conspired and then the reply today says conspiracy of 20 people..Sr. Adv. Desai: The learned magistrate remanded them to custody for investigation and that continued till October 7. Till today, there is no arrest for conspiracy and conspiracy is a separate offence. .Sr. Adv. Desai: This is the second event and we are now in custody for 22 days because of these issues which have come up for consideration and now shows panchnama..Sr. Adv. Desai: The panchnama demolishes the case of conspiracy. They thought it was a group, but what happened?.Sr. Adv. Desai: This is a case of personal consumption..Sr. Adv. Desai: It says “except personal consumption”. And there was no allegation of use in arrest memo. Desai continues reading panchnama..Sr. Adv. Desai: In this group, Vikrant and Ishmeet, I am not making submissions against them, but they were supposedly in conspiracy. Then they came across two more people who was Arbaaz and Aryan. .Sr. Adv. Desai: 6 gms of charas are supposed to be recovered from my shoes. I supposedly confessed when I was asked. I am keeping aside for retraction. I had also immediately applied for CCTV footage which the terminal has. No orders are passed in that..Sr. Adv. Desai: This confession which was added in the panchnama is admissible. I am only on the consumption. Unlike others whose statements are on purchase and sale, mine is only on consumption..Sr. Adv. Desai: Then Gomit Chopra is mentioned in the panchnama from whom cash was found. Also, the lady who is arrested with them, Dhamecha is not mentioned in this panchnama. And whatever confession is there is that both were to consume. .Sr. Adv. Desai: Arbaaz found with consumption, but they decided to invoke joint consumption. Panchnama resulted in aborting of conspiracy. .Sr. Adv. Desai: There are 4 ingredients to a crime. Intention is the highest crime. If the party was organized, and the organizers were to supply, then conspiracy applies..Sr. Adv. Desai: But if there is intention to consume then that also should not apply as no medical test is done..Sr. Adv. Desai: Section 20(b) is a theory of possession and joint possession. Consumption is a verb that has not happened. .Sr. Adv. Desai: We saw in the morning in Sessions Court.. two young children and experimenting.. and these two people were from Orissa and their reply was identical but then we read today they have been granted bail. .Sr. Adv. Desai: These are boys who were on the vessel, the vessel left, they enjoyed and then they came back, and then they were picked up. And they have been granted bail..Sr. Adv. Desai: That order is not binding on this court, and I am not on parity and if not parity, I am on liberty..Court: Who accompanied them? Sr. Adv. Desai: They were two independent people. That is what I am saying. The two of us (Arbaz and Aryan) were connected...Sr. Adv. Desai shows the chart which Sr. Adv. Rohatgi had submitted yesterday: There are three unconnected persons coming for the same purpose that is not conspiracy..Sr. Adv. Desai: Even if there is concurrence in the intention of the accused, what the prosecution must prove is that there was positive intention to commit an act with common intention..Sr. Adv. Desai Reads a Bombay High Court judgment of 2001- Abdul Rehman Fakir v state of Maharashtra. .Sr. Adv. Desai is reading State v. Nalini. Only portion pertaining to conspiracy.What are the facts of this case? Please go back to remand application..Court: How much time will you take? Sr. Adv. Desai: 30 more minutes..Court: Then I will take it tomorrow, because I have remaining board..Desai: I will try to finish in a few minutes. Only factual. What they found from me was 6 gms. But they said 21 gms of charas..Sr. Adv. Desai: There is no connection whatsoever between the others. There are no WhatsApp chats. .Sr. Adv. Desai: So far as WhatsApp chats are concerned, it is abundantly clear that there are no WhatsApp chats to support the conspiracy theory..Sr. Adv. Desai: As a part of this case, what was argued was WhatsApp chats which was 3 months before, one month before etc..Court: Is it that the 65B certificate (electronic evidence must be favoured) is done away in UK? Sr. Adv. Desai: UK has gone back to the old ways. We have adopted and continued..Sr. Adv. Desai: Without a 65B, it is not admissible now anymore. In an NDPS matter it was held that, WhatsApp chats were inadmissible..Sr. Adv. Desai: There is no seizure of mobile phone. Remand application says mobile phone seized. The procedure is that whenever there is seizure, there is a memo that has to ensure the veracity of the seizure so that there is no scope of tampering..Sr. Adv. Desai: There is no seizure memo in relation to the phones. And they argued that it was voluntarily handed over. But with personal devices, it is important to have a memo for the veracity..Court: They must have drawn.. Sr. Adv. Desai: No we have asked for it. And this argument has been advanced. In Punjab & Haryana High Court, they have held that WhatsApp is inadmissible. Justice Dangre has held that..Sr. Adv. Desai: Based on this there have been speculation of drug trafficking, it is absurd. The device is not with us, there is no panchnama. Today it is vague..Sr. Adv. Desai: Nobody stops investigation if bail is given. But, what is the need for custody when Punishment is one year?.Sr. Adv. Desai: I am seeking bail in that matter where punishment is only one year and there are circumstances to show that there is no conspiracy..Senior Advocate Mukul Rohatgi points out from arrest memo: The arrest memo refers to different items. The law requires that you must give true and correct grounds for arrest..Sr. Adv. Rohatgi: The power to arrest takes you back to section 50 of Cr.P.C. Persons should be informed of arrest and right of bail.What is important is Article 22 of the Constitution. That article flows from Article 21 (Right to life)..Sr. Adv. Rohatgi submits the judgment of Madhu Limaye of Supreme Court..Sr. Adv. Rohatgi: If there is constitutional infirmity then it cannot be cured by remand..Sr. Adv. Rohatgi: WhatsApp chats I am handicapped, I do not have them. The point is they have chats, they have possession and yet they choose to mislead me by not telling me what has been recovered...Sr. Adv. Rohatgi: Reading this remand, anybody will feel that seizure made has to do with me or Arbaaz. Though there is nothing recovered against you (Aryan), you have been alleged with Section A, B C..Sr. Adv. Desai: There are two parts to it - no conspiracy and then incriminating me with the recovery of someone else. This is a draconian Act and there is a duty to apply mind..Sr. Adv. Desai: What Your Lordships have been made to look at are statements which are violative of Article 14 (Equality), 19 (Free speech) and 21 (Right to life)..Sr. Adv. Desai: Bail should be granted and we will all be available for the investigation as and when called. Desai concludes his submissions..Advocate Ali Kaashif Khan Deshmukh begins submissions for Munmun Dhamecha..Adv Khan: I am a model by profession. I was invited. The moment I entered within 2-3 minutes, I was intercepted. Interestingly, there were two people in the room. Please see panchnama..Adv Khan Deshmukh: I am relying on their own case. In the present case there is Soumya Singh and Baldev, and they were not arrested..Adv Deshmukh: During the search which was conducted, nothing was found, but then they had recovered rolling papers from Soumya Singh. So there is nothing against me, their case is against Soumya..Adv Deshmukh: Personal search was conducted, nothing was found against her (Munmun). Case against me is copy paste from the other case..Adv Deshmukh: My case if they are arrested people as suspects, then all 1,300 people should have been arrested. I am not from Madhya Pradesh. I have no contacts with anyone. I was invited. Through me they have not arrested anyone..Court: Soumya Singh was your companion? From her bag something was found.. she is not accused.. Adv Deshmukh: I don’t even know her..Adv Deshmukh submits a compilation of the lower court orders. The Sessions Court order is 90% silent on me..Adv Deshmukh: The allegations are against other accused..Adv Deshmukh is reading out the Sessions court order: I am not connected in the present case. There is nothing found on me. If they conduct a medical test, they will find nothing against me..She never consumed drugs: Munmun Dhamecha.There is a lacuna in section 29 which needs to be filled in by this court.Section 29 does not deal with small, intermediate or large quantity. The case against majority is of small..Adv Deshmukh: They have smartly involved small with intermediate quantity people in one case and because of this, the magistrate court could not intervene..Adv Deshmukh: I am relying on the judgment of Kerala HC, where bail was granted in small quantities.I am saying that there is no connection with anyone. But in the NCB reply, they are saying that I am connected to Ishmeet Singh. .Adv Deshmukh: And that is through WhatsApp chats. And I will request the NCB to bring the WhatsApp chats on record. Deshmukh concludes his submissions..Court tells ASG to continue tomorrow. .Court: How long will you take? ASG: My friend said he will take 45 mins, so I would have taken 30 mins. But he has taken 2 hours, so I will take some time..ASG: I will try to finish within an hour. Court: If you finish in the hour, then we will finish tomorrow. .Sr. Adv. Desai: Tomorrow at 2.30? Court: After 2.30. (Everyone laughs)

Aryan Khan Bail [LIVE UPDATES from Bombay High Court]

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