Shiv Sena leader Kishore Tiwari has petitioned the Supreme Court for suo motu intervention to ensure the fundamental rights of Aryan Khan, son of Bollywood actor Shah Rukh Khan, who is currently imprisoned in the cruise ship drug case.
The letter petition also urged the Supreme Court to order a judicial investigation into the role of a Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) officer who is allegedly targeting Bollywood actors and celebrities with malicious intent.
The plea stated, “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.”
In this regard, the petitioner claimed that the concerned NCB officer's wife is a well-known Marathi actress who has not made it big in Bollywood, and that NCB's actions, beginning with the case of Sushant Singh Rajput's suicide, are to settle a personal vendetta.
The petition said, “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.”
Referring to the Special NDPS Court (Mumbai) deferring the verdict in Aryan Khan's and other accused's bail plea until October 20, the plea claimed that 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 plea further stated, “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 petition also stated that 3,000 kg of drugs were recently seized from the Mundra port in Gujarat, and that the seizures in the Aryan Khan case were a "miniscule joke" in comparison.
The petitioner submitted, “It is painful to note that its 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.”
With Maharashtra Minister Nawab Malik's recent shocking exposes on NCB, it's high time the NCB is investigated by a Supreme Court judge to uncover the truth, according to the petition.
The petition prayed, “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.”
