Bail plea of actors Srikanth, Krishna in drug case: Madras High Court to pass orders on July 8
Justice M. Nirmal Kumar heard the arguments advanced by senior counsel R. John Sathyan and advocate L. Infant Dinesh on behalf of the two actors and decided to pronounce orders on Tuesday (July 8). The counsel contended their clients were innocent and had nothing to do with the narcotics case.
According to the prosecution, Sub Inspector Arulmani attached to the Anti Narcotics Intelligence Unit (AINU) under the Triplicane Assistant Commissioner of Police, had received a source information on June 17 regarding a person in possession of cocaine near the Regional Meteorological Centre bus stop at Nungambakkam in Chennai.
Since the location fell within the Nungambakkam police station limits, the Sub Inspector shared the information with the jurisdictional Inspector (Law and Order) and obtained permission to conduct a raid by the AINU team at the bus stop where they caught hold of the first suspect Prado alias G. Pradeep Kumar.
The AINU team reportedly informed the suspect of his right to be searched either before a judicial magistrate or top government officials. However, on his insistence that he could be searched by the Sub Inspector himself, the team attempted to persuade a few passers by to be a witness to the search but in vain.
Hence, the Sub Inspector conducted the search with two of the constables in his team as the witnesses and reportedly recovered one gram of cocaine. Immediately, the suspect was arrested. He also reportedly confessed to be have obtained the contraband from Nigeria through a Ghana national named M. John.
On June 18, the AINU team arrested John at Hosur (Krishnagiri district) bus stand and reportedly recovered 10 grams of cocaine from him. Thereafter, the Sub Inspector lodged a complaint with the Nungambakkam police leading to the registration of a First Information Report (FIR) against both of them.
Further investigation in the case led to the arrest of the two actors before the court on charges of allegedly procuring the contraband for personal consumption. The prosecution claimed a urine test conducted with respect to Mr. Srikanth on June 23 had shown traces of the contraband.
However, the actor in his bail petition, said, the urine test was conducted four hours after his arrest and in the meantime, the police had given him food, water, coffee and snacks. After consuming them, the actor said he started vomiting non-stop and fainted leading to his treatment at a government hospital.
Actors' contention
'The police took the petitioner to the Rajiv Gandhi Government General Hospital in Chennai and treated him briefly by administering some medicines. Hence, there is a real apprehension that any substance could have been administered to him to falsely implicate him in the case,' his petition read.
He also alleged the police had roped him in the case only to sensationalise the entire issue though no contraband was seized from him. On his part, actor Krishna too contended no contraband was seized from him and he had been implicated in the case only on the basis of the alleged confession by the two suspects arrested initially.
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