Mumbai: Actress Rhea Chakraborty has been arrested in a drugs case related to actor Sushant Singh Rajput’s death. Rhea Chakraborty has filed her bail plea filed in the Bombay High Court. In the plea she has said she is innocent and NCB is ‘deliberately’ trying to invoke stringent charges against her and her family. Rhea also said that she has been subjected to a ‘witch-hunt’.
Facing media trial
In her bail application filed Tuesday in the HC, Rhea said she is just 28 years of age. She said that besides the probe by the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB), she has been subjected to three more investigations. The investigations are being done by police and central agencies. She said she is also facing a ‘simultaneous media trial’.
These probes refer to the ones conducted into Rajput’s death by the Mumbai Police. Also the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and the Enforcement Directorate (ED) are probing other allegations.
Rhea said all of this has taken a ‘severe toll on her mental health and well being’. Any further custody will worsen her mental health, she said in her plea filed through her counsel Satish Maneshinde.
Hearing deferred
Rhea’s bail plea was scheduled to be heard Wednesday by a single bench presided over by Justice Sarang Kotwal. However, the High Court suspended the day’s hearings owing to heavy rains in the city. So it is likely the plea will be heard Thursday.
Rajput an ‘addict’
Rhea further said in her plea that Rajput had been in the habit of consuming drugs, particularly, ‘ganja’. He was addicted even before she got into a relationship with him. She said she would sometimes procure drugs for him in ‘small quantities;. She would ‘occasionally pay for them herself’. However, she was in no way a part of any drug syndicate. She also said Rajput was the only one who was consuming the said drugs.
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“The applicant (Chakraborty) is innocent and has not committed any crime whatsoever,” the plea said.
Facing witch-hunt
Rhea also said in her plea that she has been subjected to a ‘witch-hunt’. She said after the CBI and the ED failed to gather any evidence against her, the NCB was ‘brought in to somehow implicate her and her family’.
Rhea has been booked by the NCB on several charges. Among them are financing illicit trafficking of drugs under Section 27-A of the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substance (NDPS) Act. Section 27-A brings along a bar on the grant of bail to an accused.
Wrongly booked
The actor said she has been wrongly booked under the NDPS Act Section 27-A. She also said no drugs were seized from her possession. She also said the NCB has managed to seize only 59 grams of drugs from all accused persons. So the bar on grant of bail cannot be applied to her, Rhea said in the plea.
The actress said a bar on grant of bail can come into play only if the drugs seized are in commercial quantities.
Booked under wrong sections
Besides, if Rajput was alive today, he would have been charged merely for consumption of drugs. He would have got a maximum sentence of just one year. However, she has been charged under sections imposing a maximum sentence of up to 20 years, Rhea said in the plea.
The actress is currently lodged in the Byculla women’s prison in the city.
Rajput (34) was found hanging June 14 in his home in suburban Bandra.