Rhea Chakraborty has spent two nights in Byculla Jail, the only prison for women in Mumbai.
Rhea Chakraborty has been denied bail and will stay in Mumbai's Byculla jail for now. A court rejected bail a day after hearing arguments from the actor as well as the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB), the agency that arrested her while investigating drugs charges linked to the Sushant Singh Rajput case.
On Tuesday, after Rhea Chakraborty's arrest, the NCB had said it was satisfied with her three-day questioning and did not want her custody. Two days later on Thursday, the drugs probe agency argued strongly that Rhea Chakraborty should stay in jail and should not be granted bail.
Sources explain that the agency did not want to take her into custody because it could "weaken" her confession. The NCB yesterday told the court that her confession was voluntary and made while she was not in custody. "That argument would not stand had she been in NCB custody. Her legal team could question the admissibility of her statements, call them coerced... to negate that ground, NCB did not take her into custody... to show it as a voluntary confession as she was not in the custody," said sources.
However, the actor's legal team is still challenging the confession statements, saying her questioning over three days for eight hours each was like custodial interrogation.
Here are NCB's key arguments against Rhea Chakraborty's bail:
*Rhea Chakraborty had conscious knowledge of drugs use by her boyfriend Sushant Singh Rajput and "made herself part of this offence by procuring drugs," the Narcotics Control Bureau said on Thursday while arguing against bail for the actor, who was arrested on drug charges on Tuesday.
*Rhea Chakraborty used her credit card and payment gateways to facilitate financial transactions related to dealing of illicit drug trafficking.
*She made a "voluntary confession" about her involvement during questioning and it is admissible in the court of law.
*Drugs financed (by Rhea Chakraborty) were not meant for personal consumption but for supplying them to another person.
*Section 27A of the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act) is applicable and "she cannot escape the clutches of law."
*If released on bail, the actor "may tamper with the evidence and also try to win over witnesses using her position in the society and money power".
Rhea Chakraborty had retracted her confession, saying she was "coerced into making self-incriminatory confessions". Her bail plea said she had "not committed any crime whatsoever and has been falsely implicated in the case".
The petition argued that her arrest was "unwarranted and without any justification," that her liberty was "arbitrarily curtailed" and that no female officer was present during her interrogation. Rhea Chakraborty also said she "had no access to any legal advice during her questioning when she was interrogated for a minimum of eight hours at a stretch by multiple male officers".