The Bombay high court on Monday granted bail to Siddharth Pithani, former roommate of actor Sushant Singh Rajput who died by suicide in 2020. Pithani was arrested by the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) following the agency’s probe into the drug angle to the late actor’s death.
Pithani was booked under provisions of the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act, 1985 for drug trafficking. He had approached the high court after his bail application was rejected by the special NDPS court.
A single judge bench of Justice Bharati Dangre which heard Pithani’s bail application through advocate Advait Tamhankar was informed that there was no evidence to show that he was involved in illicit trafficking of drugs.
However, the NCB through special public prosecutor Shreeram Shirsat had opposed the application claiming that there were videos and other evidence on the mobile, laptop and banking transactions which showed that the contraband had been purchased.
Pithani was arrested on May 28, 2021 from Hyderabad for allegedly procuring drugs and helping the late actor get narcotics. He was introduced to Rajput in 2017 by a friend of the late actor. In 2019, he arrived in Mumbai and stayed with Rajput for some time and also worked on the actor’s Dreams-150 project.
Pithani was one of those who had reportedly found the actor’s body on June 14, 2020. When the HC was informed by Tamhankar that section 27 (A) was wrongly applied to his client, the NCB argued that the same grounds had been raised in the earlier bail applications as well, but were rejected and he had not challenged the same in the HC.
After hearing the arguments, the bench directed Pithani to be released on a personal bond of ₹50,000.