A Look Back At NCB's Controversial Aryan Khan Case

NCB crackdowns on Bollywood celebs have been making quite some news since late 2020. If snubbing Rhea Chakraborty felt like a teaser, a full packed drama awaited the film industry one year later.  A cruise ship, a mega star’s son, NCB and the Mumbai courts played their parts as the nation witnessed a tragedy unfolding for a stretch of 25 days.

To jog your memory down….

Shahrukh Khan’s son was arrested on a cruise ship on October 2. The press ran amok with umpteen stories on NCB’s raid of the year. The meme brigade on social media dug deeper to bring an old clipping from Shahrukh’s one particular interview wherein he is seen talking in a lighter vein about how he would like his son to experience life when he is young and do drugs if he wants to. 

Aryan became the new spoilt star kid in a matter of hours and Twiteratties made a feast out of bashing Bollywood stars for their ludicrous lifestyles. But, the year’s most high-profile drugs case started seeing many twists one after the other akin to a fast-paced big ticket Bollywood extravaganza. 

Some media reports said that Khan possessed Charas at the time of arrest while some publications concluded that he conspired with the other guests on the cruise to bring drugs to the most glamorous rave party off the shore of Mumbai. According to the probing agency, if drugs were found on eight people arrested on the cruise, it can't be a coincidence that the star kid was unaware of any of the misadventures. 

Amid the frenzy and the wild speculations, the prosecution’s case stated an unpopular finding. Much to the dismay of trollers, it turned out that Aryan did not possess any contraband substances at the time of his arrest. That's not all, the authorities did not carry out any medical tests to determine whether Aryan actually consumed drugs.  

Soon the pendulum shifted…

Sentiments started changing . The wave of speculation changed to a wait riddled with anticipation. 

Bail looked on the cards for the 23-year-old Aryan. The precedents looked in his favour too. Sample this;

In a 2018 case justice Sambre had granted bail to an accused who had 430 grams of ganja on him. Back then, the judge had categorically stated that the drugs found on the co accused are too less in quantity to make a case for commercial trading. He also weighed in on the fact that the co accused did not have any prior criminal antecedents while pronouncing the order. 

No prior criminal records check

No possession check

No consumption check

It looked all set for an early Diwali at Mannat as the family waited with bated breaths to welcome their son back home.

But, this turned out to be just another plot point in the courtroom saga that was about to play out a convoluted screenplay, a dragged one to say the least. 

A tug of war between the NCB and the defense Counsel began. While the prosecution was adamant to prove Khan’s involvement, the defense team initially could not bail out Aryan from the judicial fiasco that followed. In those 25 days leading up to his release from the Arthur Road Prison, Khan’s bail was rejected twice and the hearing was adjourned at two instances. 

A cursory look at NCB's farfetched allegations

To put it briefly, NCB maintained that Aryan regularly consumed drugs. Rather than proving possession and consumption in the present instance, the prosecution’s case revolved around ‘conspiracy’ and ‘planning to consume’. After all, Aryan’s time abroad and friendship with another co accused Abbas Merchant gave NCB a fleeting right to sniff foul play at an international level. The drug busters were wanting to expose a global drug trafficking syndicate. According to them, Khan’s WhatsApp chats were enough evidence to point in this direction. 

As Niharika Karanjawala, Senior Associate, Karanjawala & Co puts it, the Aryan Khan case is an interesting conjunction of circumstances. Conscious possession cannot be used to make an individual accountable for what's there in a friend's pocket at all times.  The intent of the law is to prevent habitual users and traders from shielding themselves, she adds.

NCB failed to prove that Aryan was acting at the behest of Abbas Merchant. Rather, an excessive reliance was put on WhatsApp chats to build a case against a superstar's son.

The curious case of WhatsApp conversations

The element of WhatsApp chats got even a layman talking about the case. The question of admissibility of your private conversations as evidence became a point of national discussion. While the question of admissibility of such an innocuous medium of chatting comes at the stage of trial, If one looks closely, there is a pattern in how NCB conducts its investigations involving celebrities. 

Although WhatsApp Chats were not shown in open court, NCB seems to have done a thorough post mortem of the chats as was the modus operandi in the case involving Rhea Chakraborty last year. 

Well, without the elementary medical tests to prove consumption, basing the case on alleged informal conversations between friends and acquaintances in foreign countries makes it a case floating on thin ice. Add to this, a few foreign jurisdictions legalize certain categories of drugs. In such a case, linking Aryan's alleged conversations abroad builds an unfair narrative against him. More so, the conspiracy angle lacked teeth as the agency could not prove a meeting of the minds in the present case in the court of law.

A call for change

While the prosecution rested its case on a weaker footing, there is no denying that NCB’s wide powers under the NDPS Act became a talking point in media as well as social circles.

Unlike other criminal cases, bail is the exception and jail is the norm in NDPS cases and heinous crimes.

The overkill of NCB's powers and the inability to get timely bail for Khan raised voices for amending the Act. Some said that the draconian law has not aged well while others called for a complete change in structure and approach.

The Act could benefit from bringing an element of gradation between first time offenders and second time offenders, small quantities and commercial quantities of drugs. Even if the Act is to apply in its current form, it must be applied in letter and spirit so that the process itself does not become the punishment sums up Ms Karanjawala.

NCB's headline grabbing approach to cases involving celebs

While the case casts a question marks and exposed lacunae in the criminal procedure and the justice delivery system, NCB's approach in cases involving celebrities came under sharp scrutiny.

Right from Rhea Chakraborty's case, the prosecution has been batting for harsher punishment on the pretext of celebs being role models. As the Aryan Khan was playing out, a star kid was paying the price for being a son to a famous father.

Should the prosecution go with a high-handed approach in cases involving celebrities?

Everyone is equal in the eyes of law. The learned court did not agree with the preposterous argument in Rhea Chakraborty's case. Likewise, these arguments won't hold in the Aryan Khan case, says Ms Karanjawala.

Celebrities are citizens after all and every citizen merits an equal degree of protection of their constitutional rights.

As for the NCB, the agency surely makes sensational headlines with these pot boiling cases against high profile celebs but the investigation soon runs out of steam. 

Food for thought for everyone involved at the helm of affairs. More substance than sensationalism one would like to guess.

Click the link below to watch a 360 degree discussion on the Aryan Khan case featuring Niharika Karanjawala, Senior Associate, Karanajawala & Co.

Niharika Karanjawala On The Aryan Khan Case