Aryan Khan bail plea: Special NDPS court to hear matter on October 13

Aryan Khan, the son of Bollywood star Shah Rukh Khan, will have to remain in the Arthur Road jail for few more days as a special court under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act in Mumbai said on Monday his bail plea will be heard on Wednesday. The special court said that the bail plea of Aryan Khan will be heard on Wednesday after the lawyer for the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) sought seven days to file a reply in connection with the cruise ship drugs party bust. However, special judge VV Patil adjourned the matter to Wednesday.

Aryan Khan was arrested on October 3 by the NCB after the agency’s team raided a rave party on the Goa-bound cruise ship a day before. Before the special NDPS court heard the bail plea of Aryan Khan, his lawyer talked about the next move. "It is natural that if the bail application is rejected by a court, we move to the higher court. We have filed the bail application here. The hearing is likely to take place today,” Aryan Khan's lawyer Satish Maneshinde was quoted as saying by news agency ANI.

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A local court in Mumbai denied bail to 23-year-old Aryan Khan and two others last Friday and additional chief metropolitan magistrate (ACMM) RM Nerlikar sent Khan, Arbaaz Merchant and Munmun Dhamecha to jail for two weeks pending an investigation into the case. They have been booked under various provisions of the NDPS act. Nerlikar said in his 15-page order released on Saturday that a magistrate's court does not have the jurisdiction to entertain a bail application for an offence with prescribed punishment of more than three years under the NDPS act and it has to be tried by a special court.

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An NCB team raided the Goa-bound cruise ship on October 2 based on a tip-off and claimed to have seized banned drugs. The NCB has so far arrested 20 people in connection with the case, which has lead to the political slugfest.