MUMBAI, Nov 23: A Mumbai court on Monday granted bail to comedian Bharti Singh and her writer husband Harsh Limbachiya arrested by the Narcotics Control Bureau for possessing and consuming drugs. The NCB in a raid in their Andheri residence is claimed to have seized 86.5 grams of “ganja” (cannabis) and maintained that during interrogation both had accepted the charge of consuming drugs. Bharti was put under arrest on Saturday evening and Harsh on Sunday morning after some 15 hours of grueling interrogation.
The court granted them bail after they were sent to 14 days judicial custody when the couple of presented before the court on Sunday.
Both of them were booked for possessing a small quantity of drugs as well as consumption of drugs. On Sunday, the court while sending them to judicial custody had rejected the NCB’s request to allow Harsh Limbachiya’s custodial interrogation. They had applied for bail soon after but the judge could not take up their request since the NCB officer concerned and the public prosecutor absented themselves.
“Hence, at 2pm the court heard us and allowed the bail plea,” their lawyer Ayaz Khan said.
The NCB had raided Bharti Singh’s house and her husband’s production house in Andheri after the arrest of a 21-year-old accused of trafficking drugs. According to the NCB’s submissions in court, they had found 65 gram of a dry green leafy substance that tested positive for cannabis.
The NCB has been probing alleged drug use in Bollywood after the death of actor Sushant Singh Rajput in June on the basis of WhatsApp chats involving drugs. NCB had arrested actor Rhea Chakraborty, her brother Showik, some of Rajput’s staffers and a few others under various sections of the NDPS Act. Chakraborty has denied the allegations against her. She, along with some other accused, were released on bail after spending about a month in jail.
(Manas Dasgupta)
