Sushant Singh Rajput death: Court discharges Australian national from drugs case

MUMBAI: A special court on Friday discharged Paul Gerard Bartels, an Australian national who the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) had arrested in November 2020 following the death of actor Sushant Singh Rajput for allegedly being part of a drug syndicate in Bollywood.
Bartels, 59, was arrested for allegedly procuring and consuming contraband. The special judge for cases under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act, Mahesh K Jadhav, allowed his discharge plea, observing that there was no sufficient ground to prove the accused’s involvement in the case.
Special public prosecutor Geeta Nayyar said that Bartels, along with co-accused Agisilaos Demetriades, purchased the contraband from another accused who was connected to Rajput and actor Rhea Chakraborty, who was booked by the NCB in the drugs case. The prosecution referred to Bartels’ alleged WhatsApp chats proving his nexus with other drug peddlers. Nayyar further submitted that there was strong evidence to prove that Bartels also consumed a small quantity of contraband.
Bartel’s advocate, Zehra Charnia, submitted that no incriminating material was recovered from his house and that there was no evidence connecting him with the co-accused. She added that there was also no evidence proving a nexus since his name did not appear in the statement given by the co-accused.
The court concurred with Charnia’s submission that no contraband article was found or recovered from Bartels’ house during the NCB search, and that none of the co-accused gave any statement against him. It said that the WhatsApp chats on record do not prove that the accused had any connection with other co-accused.
“The statement of present applicant/accused recorded by NCB officer did not reflect that [he] has admitted that he has consumed contraband substance or possessed contraband substance,” said the court. Releasing Bartels from the case, the court observed that no charges could be framed against him since “there is no material to prove the factum of actual involvement of the applicant/accused in the commission of the alleged offence”.
The NCB had launched an investigation into drug use in the Hindi film industry as part of a probe to reveal the circumstances around Rajput’s death by suicide in June 2020.