The Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) on Monday moved the Supreme Court challenging the Bombay High Court order that granted bail to Bollywood actor Rhea Chakraborty, who had been arrested under drugs-related charges in connection with actor Sushant Singh Rajput's death case.
A Supreme Court bench of Chief Justice Bobde and Justices AS Bopanna and V Ramasubramanian will hear the plea on March 18.
On October 7 last year, the Bombay High Court had granted bail to Rhea Chakraborty and had directed her to deposit a personal bond of Rs 1 lakh. It had, however, rejected the bail plea of her brother, Showik Chakraborty, who is also an accused in the case, as well as the plea of an alleged drug peddler Abdel Basit Parihar. However, later in December, Showik was granted bail by a special Mumbai court.
Rhea, her brother and the other accused were arrested in September last year by the NCB in connection with its probe into the drugs angle related to the case of Rajput's death.
While granting bail to Rhea Chakraborty and two others, the high court had directed them to deposit their passports with the NCB and not to leave the country without the permission of the special NDPS court. It had asked Rhea to deposit a personal bond of Rs 1 lakh and directed her to visit the NCB office at 11 am on the first day of every month for the next six months.
All those who have been granted bail, including Rhea, will also have to seek the permission of the NCB's investigating officer to go out of Mumbai, the court had said.
Rajput, 34, was found dead at his apartment in suburban Bandra on June 14 last year. The NCB is probing various angles that emerged after the Enforcement Directorate (ED) had retrieved some Whatsapp chats from Rhea’s phone that raised suspicion on the use and sale of banned drugs.
The anti-drugs agency has also questioned other members of the film industry, including Deepika Padukone, Sara Ali Khan, Arjun Rampal and his girlfriend Gabriella Demetriades, Rakul Preet Singh and Shraddha Kapoor. Film producer Firoz Nadiadwala had also been summoned by the NCB and the agency had also arrested his wife Shabana Saeed, who was later granted bail. Arjun Rampal’s home was raided by the NCB recently after the brother of his girlfriend Gabriella, Agisialos Demetriades, was arrested in a drug-related case on October 19.