Aryan Khan will appear before the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) on Friday to mark his presence before the agency—one of the conditions set by the Bombay high court while granting bail to the 23-year-old who was arrested, along with several others, in the drugs-on-cruise case last month.
Aryan Khan as to appear before the investigating officer of NCB every Friday between 11am and 2pm and join the investigation as and when called.
Aryan Khan was released from Mumbai’ s Arthur Road prison on October 30 after spending 22 days in jail as the Bombay high court granted him bail. The high court’s five-page bail order listed 14 bail conditions, including surrendering of passport, no influencing of witnesses or contacting co-accused and presenting themselves in the NCB office every week.
The Bombay high court said that if any of these conditions is violated, then the NCB is entitled to apply for the cancellation of his bail straightaway.
The high court said Aryan Khan should not indulge in activity similar to what they are charged with. He should not establish contact with any co-accused or any other person directly or indirectly involved in similar activities as alleged against them, through any mode of communication, the court has ordered.
He cannot make any statement regarding the proceedings pending before the special NDPS court to any media, including social media. He will have to surrender his passports and cannot leave the country without the permission of the special NDPS court.
If he has to leave Mumbai, he should inform about the itinerary to the investigating officer. He cannot make any attempt to tamper evidence, influence witnesses – neither personally, nor through anyone.
A team led by NCB zonal chief Sameer Wankhede conducted searches on a holiday cruise anchored at the International Cruise Terminal in Mumbai and seized multiple drugs from a number of persons on October 2. Wankhede said that 13 grams of cocaine, 5 grams of mephedrone, 21 grams of charas, 22 pills of MDMA (ecstasy), and 1.33 lakh in cash were recovered from the ship.
Though no drugs were recovered from Aryan, his friend Arbaaz Merchant, who was with him at the time, was arrested for possessing 6 grams of charas in a plastic pouch in his shoe.
Aryan Khan spent three weeks in jail after a special court under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act sent him to judicial remand accepting the NCB’s charge that he was indulging in “illicit drug activities on a regular basis”.