Mumbai: Actor Rhea Chakraborty and her brother, Showik, have approached the Bombay High Court with separate pleas for bail in a drug case under investigation by the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) in connection with actor Sushant Singh Rajput’s death. The siblings’ plea came 10 days after a special Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act court refused them bail on September 11.

There is no case of a non-bailable offence made out against her, said Rhea’s petition. The grounds on which Rhea is seeking bail includes a contention that investigations by the NCB are “mala fide” and its charges were absurd. She said over three central agencies had been hounding her and had involved her in some or the other case.

Their bail application before the high court is coming up for hearing on Wednesday before Justice Sarang V Kotwal, said the siblings’ lawyer Satish Maneshinde.

The trial court on Tuesday extended Rhea’s judicial remand till October 6. She was produced via video-conferencing at 1.40 pm from Byculla jail. The NCB filed a plea before the special judge to record statements of Showik and cook Deepesh Sawant in jail. The court will hear the plea on Wednesday along with the bail plea of another accused, alleged drug peddler Suryadeep Malhotra.

Rhea said the police, the CBI and the ED had found nothing against her. She said the NCB was acting on the basis of information given by the ED and it was going after people for small quantities of substances and had arrested almost 16 persons. Small-quantity offences are bailable.

Her plea said the NCB or any central agency had been unable to crack the real drug syndicate, most members of which were abroad.

One of her grounds is that the allegation of the department itself totally “exonerates” her as its case is that only Rajput was consuming drugs and that he used his “domestic help, friends and girlfriend for his drug habits”.

Her contention was that there was no material to suggest that she was financing any drug syndicate or illicit trafficking. “Even the allegations made of her alleged procuring and making payments is only for alleged small quantities,” her plea said.

Her plea said Section 27A (financing illicit traffic and harbouring) of the NDPS Act was introduced to deal with international trafficking in view of the country being party to the UN convention against drugs. It said that a 2001 amendment was aimed at relaxing rules for bail in relation to small quantities.

The NDPS court had said “there is a bar” against releasing her or Showik since they were booked under non-bailable offence under Section 27A.NCB said she had named persons whom they were yet to investigate.

She said she had retracted a statement made to the NCB.