NCB officer after Bollywood celebs due to personal vendetta, says Shiv Sena leader seeking SC intervention

A letter petition has been moved before the Supreme Court by Shiv Sena leader Kishore Tiwari seeking its suo motu intervention to ensure protection of fundamental rights of Aryan Khan, son of Bollywood actor Shah Rukh Khan, who is currently in custody in the cruise ship drug case.

The letter petition also urged the apex court to order a judicial enquiry into the role of an officer at the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) who is allegedly targeting Bollywood actors and celebrities with malafide intentions.

"I am most respectfully submitting the present petition with the humble request to Your Honour to take suo moto cognizance as the law enforcement agencies – NCB – under NDPS Act is abusing position and trying to deprive the basic Human Rights of the person accused under NDPS Act and by misconstruing the provisions of the law, the poor, innocent people are being put behind the bars," the plea said, as per a Bar & Bench report.

In this regard, the petitioner alleged that the concerned NCB officer's wife is a well-known Marathi actress who has not been able to make it big in Bollywood and the actions of NCB, starting with the case of Sushant Singh Rajput's suicide, is to settle personal vendetta.

"This ongoing NCB operations seems out of a personal vendetta only. In past 15-18 months, what (is the) motive for targeting only top film personalities, their families, national-international models, producers-directors, etc., Starting from the Sushant Singh Rajput death matter, the probe is totally diverted in an unrelated direction," the petition said.

Referring to the Special NDPS Court (Mumbai) deferring the verdict in the bail plea of Aryan Khan and other accused till October 20, the plea said this has subjected the accused "to big humiliation and (he has been) kept in jail in an undemocratic and illegal way" for 17 nights.

"The malafide, autocratic, style, approach and dirty vendetta affairs of NCB officer at Mumbai, targeting select film celebrity and few models since last two years is also a matter of big concern given a fact that officer’s wife at Mumbai is also a film celebrity having direct competition with the models & film celebrities against whom her husband NCB official is taking action under NDPS Act," the plea further alleged.

The plea also highlighted how 3,000 kg of drugs were recently seized from Mundra port in Gujarat and how the seizures in Aryan Khan case was a "miniscule joke" compared to that.

"It is painful to note that it’s incredible that someone remains inside (jail) for so many days without seizure of drugs or any other proof. No medical report of consumption, so no consumption. I am very much surprised that how can Aryan be held in custody, when the maximum sentence would be one year, even assuming that he has taken drugs, but his fundamental rights guaranteed under Part III of our Constitution are to be protected till his conviction under NDPS Act," the petitioner submitted.

“With recent shocking exposes on NCB made by Maharashtra Minister Nawab Malik, it’s high time the NCB is probed by a Supreme Court judge to unravel the truth,” the petition added.

"I most respectfully pray to take suo moto cognizance on top priority to protect the fundamental Human Rights of Mr. Aryan Shahrukh Khan, an accused under the crime registered by Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB), Mumbai under Ministry of Home Affairs, Govt of India, New Delhi and also order judicial enquiry and investigation in to the malafide role and vendetta style of working of NCB officer whose wife is in competition with other film celebrity/ model against whom NDPS Act action taken by this biased NCB officer," the petition prayed.