Mukul Rohatgi to Satish Maneshinde: Meet the legal team hired by Shah Rukh Khan for son Aryan Khan's bail

The Bombay High Court on October 28 granted bail to Aryan Khan, Munmun Dhamecha and Arbaaz Seth Merchantt in the Mumbai cruise drug bust case.

Aryan Khan, 23, arrested by the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) on October 3, was in the beginning represented by advocate Satish Maneshinde, who also represented Rhea Chakraborty in a drugs case. Later, senior advocate Amit Desai, who helped Salman Khan get acquitted in the 2002 hit-and-run case, also represented Khan in the court. After the case moved to the Bombay High Court, Mukul Rohatgi pitched in.

Here is a brief profile of the team of lawyers hired by the Bollywood actor to defend his son Aryan Khan

Mukul Rohatgi, the former Attorney General of India

Mukul Rohatgi, 66, served as the 14th Attorney General of India for three years starting from 2014 to 2017. Son of former Delhi High Court judge Justice Awadh Behari Rohatgi, Mukul is a senior advocate at the Supreme Court.

Mukul Rohatgi completed his law degree from Government Law College in Mumbai and started practising law right after college. He was designated as a senior counsel by the Delhi High Court in 1993 and was later appointed as Additional Solicitor General of India in 1999.

Also, read: Suhana Khan's message and a photo for brother Aryan after his bail

Rohatgi has many crucial yet sensational cases to his credit, one of them being the 2002 Gujarat riots case where he appeared before the court for the government of Gujarat.

After Aryan Khan’s bail, Rohatgi said the drugs-on-cruise case was a regular matter. “They (Aryan and his co-accused in the case Arbaz Merchant and Munmum Dhamecha) will come out of jail after the order is released from the court. For me, it is a regular case -- to win some, to lose some. I am happy that he (Khan) has got bail,” he told reporters outside the court.

Satish Maneshinde, Bollywood's favourite criminal lawyer

Advocate Satish Maneshinde, whose clients include actors like Salman Khan, Sanjay Dutt, and most recently actor Rhea Chakraborty and now Aryan Khan, is not for no reason Bollywood’s favourite lawyer.

Maneshinde, 56, came into the spotlight when he took up actor Salman Khan’s drunk driving case in 2002. Maneshinde also defended Salman Khan in the blackbuck poaching case of 1998.

Also read: Sushant Singh Rajput’s death: Rhea Chakraborty granted bail by Bombay HC in drugs case

In 1993, Maneshinde represented actor Sanjay Dutt in the Bombay bomb blast case and was credited for securing bail for Dutt. He also handled Daya Nayak’s assets case, the Shobhan Mehta match-fixing scandal and Chota Rajan’s wife Sujata’s organised crime case, according to a report in News18.

“God is Great,” Manishende said after the Bombay High Court verdict granting Aryan Khan bail on October 28.

While trying to look for a job in Mumbai in 1983, Maneshinde worked as a junior lawyer under celebrated criminal lawyer, late Ram Jethmalani.

Amit Desai, who helped Salman Khan in 2002 hit-and-run case

Amit Desai, 58, is a senior advocate and a renowned Mumbai High Court criminal lawyer. Desai, along with Manishende, was instrumental in securing bail for Salman Khan in the ‘hit and run case’ of 2002.  In December 2015, the Bombay High Court acquitted Salman Khan of all charges in the 2002 hit-and-run case in which he was convicted and sentenced to five years’ imprisonment by a sessions court.

Other lawyers

According to a statement of the Karanjawala & Company firm roped in by Shah Rukh Khan, Mukul Rohatgi along with his team consisting of senior partners Ruby Singh Ahuja and Sandeep Kapur were added to the legal team of Aryan Khan on October 26.

Also, read: Shah Rukh Khan, Aryan Khan and the war on Bollywood

This battery of lawyers included other big names like Anandini Fernandes and Rustom Mulla, a partner at Desai Desai Carrimjee & Mulla law firm.