Rhea Chakraborty granted bail in Sushant Singh Rajput death case; actress expresses gratitude

Rhea Chakraborty, the Bollywood actress who was accused of abetment of suicide by the family of late actor Sushant Singh Rajput, has been granted bail by the Supreme Court after nearly a month in jail. The actress was arrested in September 2020 by the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) for allegedly buying drugs for Rajput, who was found dead in his Mumbai house on June 14, 2020.

The NCB had charged Chakraborty under the stringent Section 27-A of the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act that pertains to “financing and harbouring illegal drug trafficking”.

Now, according to a report in the Hindustan Times, NCB is not contesting the bail request, as additional solicitor general S V Raju informed the justices AS Bopanna and MM Sundresh's bench. However, the legal issue surrounding Section 27-A of the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act should be left open. Regarding Rhea Chakraborty's case, the ASG pleaded with the court, saying, “We are not challenging the grant of bail but on the interpretation of the section, please keep it open for consideration. Let the order not be a precedent also.”

The bench said, “Having heard the ASG, at this stage, the challenge to the impugned order in so far as grant of bail may not be required. However, the question of law raised is left open to be considered in an appropriate case, and as such, the judgement may not be treated as precedent in any other case.”

Chakraborty, who lived with Rajput for a year and shifted out on June 8, 2020, just six days before the actor's death, has denied any wrongdoing and has expressed her gratitude to her fans and well-wishers for their support. 

Rhea has also faced a media trial and online trolling for allegedly getting Rajput addicted to drugs and driving him to suicide. However, a panel of doctors at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), one of India's biggest public hospitals, submitted a report to India's investigating agency last week ruling out murder. "Sushant's death is a case of suicide," Dr Sudhir Gupta, who led the panel, told local media earlier this week.

Sushant Singh Rajput passed away during the pandemic in 2020.