Procured drugs in small quantities for Sushant Rajput, Rhea Chakraborty says in her bail plea

Mumbai, September 23

Actor Rhea Chakraborty, arrested in a drugs case related to actor Sushant Singh Rajput's death, has said in her bail plea filed in the Bombay High Court that she is innocent and the NCB is "deliberately" trying to invoke stringent charges against her and her family.

She said she had been subjected to a "witchhunt".

In her bail application filed in the court on Tuesday, Chakraborty said she is just 28, and besides the probe by the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB), she had been subjected to three more investigations by police and central agencies, and a "simultaneous media trial".

These probes refer to the ones conducted into Rajput's death by the Mumbai police, the Central Bureau of Investigation and the Enforcement Directorate.

Chakraborty said all of this had taken a "severe toll on her mental health and well-being".

Any further custody would worsen her mental health, she said in her plea filed through her counsel Satish Maneshinde.

Her bail plea was scheduled to be heard by a bench presided over by Justice Sarang Kotwal on Wednesday.

However, since the High Court suspended the day's hearings owing to heavy rain in the city, the plea is likely to be heard on Thursday.

Chakraborty said in her plea that Rajput had been in the habit of consuming drugs, particularly "ganja" since even before she got into a relationship with him.

While she would sometimes procure drugs for him in "small quantities", and would also "occasionally pay for them herself," she was in no way part of any drugs syndicate.

She said Rajput is the only one who was consuming the said drugs.

"The applicant (Chakraborty) is innocent and has not committed any crime whatsoever," the plea said.

She said in her plea that she had been subjected to a "witchhunt," and after the CBI and the ED failed to gather any evidence against her, the NCB was "brought in to somehow implicate her and her family".

Chakraborty has been booked by the NCB on several charges, including financing illicit trafficking of drugs under Section 27-A of the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act.

Section 27-A brings along a bar on the grant of bail to an accused.

The actor said she had been wrongly booked under Section 27-A of the NDPS.

Besides, since no drugs were seized from her possession and since the NCB had managed to seize only 59 gm of drugs from all the accused, the bar on the grant of bail could not be applied to her, she said in the plea.

The actor said a bar on the grant of bail could come into play only if the drugs seized were in commercial quantities.

Chakraborty said that at best, she could be accused of having procured drugs in small amounts for her boyfriend.

However, she was trying her best to wean Rajput off the habit, she said.

Besides, if Rajput was alive today, he would have been charged merely for the consumption of drugs and would have invited a maximum sentence of just one year, while she had been charged under sections imposing a maximum sentence of up to 20 years, Chakraborty said in the plea.

She is currently lodged in the Byculla women's prison in the city.

Rajput (34) was found hanging at his home in suburban Bandra on June 14. PTI

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