Aryan Khan's bail: An indictment of the NCB itself

The collapse of the case against Aryan Khan, son of actor Shah Rukh Khan, and five others, who were arrested by the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) in a raid on the passengers of a cruise ship off Mumbai in October last year, is an indictment of the Bureau itself. It is a case not of poor and shoddy investigation but of motivated use of power and law against innocent people. The whole exercise has now turned out to be an attempt by a senior official of the NCB, Sameer Wankhede, who headed the local team of the agency, to trap a celebrity person into a false case. Even at the time of the raids, it was known that no drugs were seized from Aryan Khan and there was nothing to proceed against him. But claims were made on the basis of WhatsApp messages that he had links with international drug trafficking networks. Everything about the case was dubious -- wild and unsubstantiated claims, leaks to the media, the presence of unauthorised persons in the raiding party, and the presentation of stock witnesses in court.

A special investigation team had to be formed after a Maharashtra politician, Nawab Malik, made some dramatic disclosures about the investigation and exposed it. The NCB has now dropped Aryan Khan and others from the chargesheet as it has found no evidence against them. It has cited various lapses and procedural infirmities in its investigation. The NCB has done well to correct the mistake it made but the whole incident raises uncomfortable questions about the working of the agency. Since a high-profile person was involved and questions were asked about the operation, the matter received national attention and forced the agency to review its actions. The lot of lesser people could well be imagined then. Lower courts had rejected the bail petitions of Aryan Khan and others before the Bombay High Court granted them bail, observing even then that there was no evidence against them.

The NCB’s conduct shows that it has not learnt any lessons from the strictures passed by the Bombay High Court against it while granting bail to actor Rhea Chakraborty in the Sushant Singh Rajput case. Aryan Khan and others had to spend a number of days in jail and were subjected to unwanted attention and malicious harassment. Their right to privacy was violated. How can they be compensated for all that? The NCB has transferred Wankhede to Tamil Nadu, but the punishment should not be limited to departmental action. The agency’s credibility has suffered due to this and similar incidents in the past. Its job is not to go after individual drug-users but to catch and bust drug traffickers, domestic and international.