Mumbai:A magistrate's court has no jurisdiction to entertain a bail application for an offence with prescribed punishment of more than three years under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act as it is triable by a special court, as per the order by which the bail plea of Aryan Khan and two others, held in the cruise ship drugs case, were rejected.
Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate(ACMM) R M Nerlikar had rejected their bail pleas on Friday.
In the 15-page order, the details of which were made available on Saturday, the ACMM said "this court ceases its jurisdiction to entertain the applications for bail" considering section 36A and the fact that all three were held for one crime under various provisions of the NDPS Act for which the prescribed punishment was more than three years.
All the alleged offences are exclusively triable by the special court, his order further stated.
Aryan Khan, son of Bollywood superstar Shah Rukh Khan, as well as Arbaaz Merchant and Munmun Dhamecha were arrested on October 3 following the alleged seizure of banned drugs aboard a cruise ship off the Mumbai coast.
They have been booked under various provisions of NDPS Act and are currently in judicial custody.
So far, 18 people have arrested by the Narcotics Control Bureau in connection with the incident.
The ACMM's court noted the investigation revealed that allegations leveled against all the accused are in respect of consumption, sale and purchase, with intermediate quantity as well as commercial quantity of narcotic drugs and psychotropic substances allegedly being seized, for which the punishment prescribed is more than three years.