Priyanka Singh:
Published on: September 21, 2022 at 19:03 IST
The Bombay High Court granted bail to Bollywood actor Armaan Kohli in a drug trafficking case. He was released on a bond of Rs.1 Lakh with sureties by Justice Nitin W. Sambre.
Kohli was arrested for allegedly possessing 1.2 grams contraband cocaine by the Narcotics Control Bureau at his house. A total of seven arrests have been made in the case.
He was charged u/s 8(c) read with Sections 21, 22, 27a, 28, 29 and 35 of the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act, 1985 (NDPS Act).
The bail application, filed through Advocate Taraq Sayed, submitted that the cocaine recovered is of a consumable quantity which can be awarded a sentence maximum for 1 year, and that the evidence can only attract Section 27 of the NDPS Act, negating any evidence for the offences under Sections 27A and 29 of the NDPS Act that include the financing of illicit traffic and harboring offenders and abetment and criminal conspiracy respectively.
It also highlighting the fact that the bank statements to support the evidence were brought in the later parts of the investigation, hence alleging it to be a pre-meditated move to sustain charge under Section 27A.
The mentioned bank statements do not reflect financing or harboring under Section 27A of the NDPS Act, hence, showcasing malicious intentions and assumptions against the accused.
The bail application further highlighted that two of the co-accused, who have large transactions reflecting in their bank statements, evidently due to financing largely, have not been charged of Section 27A, but has been invoked against Kohli, showing prejudice of the Bureau against him.
The application contented that the WhatsApp chats are submitted to the Court are insufficient to prove the charges against the accused, also highlighting that electronic evidence should be produced only under the certificate if a laboratory u/s 292 of the CrPC due to it being prone to manipulated and faked.
The application claimed that the prosecution has made mere failed attempts to combine the three cases to cover all the accused under one case to constitute for a non-bailable offences under the Section 37 of the NDPS Act.
Previously –
In December, 2021, the Bombay HC had rejected his bail application but granted bail to two of the other accused.