Sushant Singh Rajput's death case: Court rejects bail pleas of Rhea Chakraborty, her brother

A special court in Mumbai rejected the bail application of actor-model Rhea Chakraborty and her brother Showik, besides four others in a case related to sourcing drugs for late actor Sushant Singh Rajput.

Rhea (28), the live-in partner of Sushant, is currently lodged in the Byculla women’s jail in Mumbai after her arrest by the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB).

Special judge GB Gurao, who presides over a court set up under Narcotics Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act, rejected the bail pleas of all the six accused in the case.

Besides Rhea and Showik, the four other accused are Sushant’s house manager Samuel Miranda, house help Dipesh Sawant and two alleged drug peddlers Abdel Bashit Parihar and Zaid Vilatra.

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This is the second time, Rhea’s bail plea has been rejected – the earlier being by the Magistrate’s court.

While Rhea is in judicial custody till 22 September, Showik and four others are in judicial custody till 23 September.

The Chakraborty siblings were represented by advocate Satish Maneshinde, while NCB was represented by special public prosecutor Atul Sarpande.

NCB’s intelligence officer Kiran Babu was also present in the court.

The accused are likely to move the Bombay High Court and challenge the special NDPS court and seek bail.

“Once we get the copy of the order, we will decide next week on the course of action about approaching the high court,” Maneshinde said.

Welcoming the order, Sarpande said: “While rejecting the bail pleas, the court has accepted the contentions of the prosecution that the investigations are at a crucial stage”.

During the investigations, the accused were grilled by a team of senior officers including NCB’s deputy director general Mutha Ashok Jain, deputy director of operations KPS Malhotra and Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) joint director Sameer Wankhede, who has been attached to NCB for six months in the wake of this case.

Rhea, who has been with Sushant since 2019, has retracted the confessional statement recorded by NCB.

Read | Sushant Singh Rajput death case: Coerced to make self-incriminating confessions, Rhea Chakraborty says in plea

The anti-drug agency has told the court that Rhea was conscious that Sushant was consuming drugs but continued to procure for him.

The NCB had said that although the quantity of banned drugs seized in the case was small, it was still a commercial quantity and worth Rs 1,85,200."Rhea and Showik financed and arranged drugs for Sushant Singh Rajput and at his instructions," the NCB had said in its affidavit responding to the bail pleas.”

Co-accused and Rajput''s domestic help Dipesh Sawant, he used to procure drugs from other accused in the case on the instructions of Rajput and Rhea. The financial transactions were handled by Rhea and sometimes Rajput. Dipesh Sawant used to procure drugs along with co-accused Samuel Miranda for Sushant's consumption," the affidavit said.