Provogue Lounge owner Salil Chaturvedi will be tried only for the possession of three grams of cocaine that was found in his house on August 2005.
Provogue Lounge owner Salil Chaturvedi will be tried only for the possession of three grams of cocaine that was found in his house on August 2005.
The Bombay High Court ordered the separation of his trial from that of the other accused in the cocaine trafficking case of January 2005. Three separate chargesheets will now be filed against the nine accused in the case.
One against Chaturvedi, another against Provogue employees Allwyn Sequeira, his brother Joseph, and Vishal Manghnani, two police officers, Sanjay Shinde and Shantilal Jadhav, and the third against three Tanzanian nationals Said Hashim, David Lukanga and Thomas Eje, who were arrested with 864 gm of cocaine.
Had he been tried for conspiracy in a clubbed trial and found guilty, Chaturvedi would have been sentenced to a minimum of ten years in jail (up to a maximum of 20 years).
With the trial separated, he will face a maximum sentence of ten years if found guilty under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act, 1985.
The state government had challenged the March 2007 order of a special court that allowed a separate trial for Chaturvedi.
However, senior advocate VR Manohar argued that prima facie there was no evidence to show that the cocaine seized from Chaturvedi’s house was a part of the same transaction as the contraband recovered from the others. Justice DG Karnik also observed that the evidence brought before the court was not sufficient to prove the charges of criminal conspiracy.
The case pertains to a suspicious parcel for Chennai that Sequeira left at the Jet Airways Cargo on January 26, 2005. The security staff handed the parcel over to the police who conducted forensic tests on found cocaine mixed with another powder.
Sequeira and Joseph were arrested in the case in March and May 2005 respectively. Subsequently Manghnani and Shinde, who allegedly changed the powder in the parcel left behind by Sequeira and Jadhav whose name cropped during the investigation were arrested. The three Tanzanian nationals were arrested in July 2005.
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
)
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
)
)
)
)
)
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}