Defreeze bank accounts of actor Rhea Chakraborty and kin, says Mumbai court A special court for Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) in Mumbai on Saturday ruled to defreeze several bank accounts belonging to actor Rhea Chakraborty, her brother Showik, and their mother Sandhya. The court, presided over by Judge U C Deshmukh, determined that the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) had failed to comply with mandatory procedural safeguards under the NDPS Act. The siblings are implicated in a drugs case linked to the 2020 death of actor Sushant Singh Rajput. The court’s order emphasized that Section 68F of the NDPS Act requires any freeze or seizure of property to be confirmed by a competent authority within 30 days of the initial order. Judge Deshmukh noted that the NCB had not followed this procedure, rendering the freeze invalid. The ruling allowed the Chakrabortys to operate their bank accounts in accordance with Reserve Bank of India (RBI) regulations. The case revolves around the freezing of accounts held by Rhea, Showik, and Sandhya, including joint savings accounts at ICICI Bank, a personal savings account at Axis Bank, and a current account at Kotak Mahindra Bank. The Chakrabortys argued that the NCB’s actions violated statutory timelines, as no confirmation order was issued within the required 30-day window. They also highlighted that their accounts had been frozen in September 2020 following their arrests, despite no transactions occurring since 2019. In a separate plea, Rhea and Showik sought to remove the name of their company, Vividrage Rhealityx Pvt Ltd, from the Register of Companies. They claimed the bank had refused to process the closure of the corporate account due to the NCB’s freeze.#ncb #rhea_chakraborty #showik_chakraborty #sandhya_chakraborty #judge_u_c_deshmukh
