Court rejects Fardeen's plea for immunity

Mumbai, Sept 22 (UNI) A city court today rejected the plea of Bollywood actor Fardeen Khan seeking ''immunity'' from the prosecution in a cocaine seizure case registered against him during May 2001.

Khan moved his plea before the special NDPS judge P N Deshmukh and pleaded that cocaine quantity involved only one gram which is small quantity hence pleaded for immunity from the case.

However, special public prosecutor J R Solanki argued that the applicant had earlier approached the court to specify the amount of cocaine as the chargesheet which was silent on this aspect, was also rejected.

He also said that the court has no jurisdiction to grant immunity under section 64 (A) of the NDPS act hence he had to reject his application.

According to the charge sheet, nine grams of the contraband was seized from the actor when they had arrested him along with the peddler Nasir Abdul Karim Shaikh.

Nasir, in a statement, has backed Fardeen's claim by saying that he planned to sell only one gram of the contraband to the actor and remaining eight grams were meant for some other buyer.

Besides Khan and Nasir, one more person Tony Gomes was arrested by the NCB sleuths in this case.

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