After the bail hearing of Aryan Khan was expedited, lawyers have asked for treating bail applications with equality and at the same time, they have raised questions regarding the preferential treatment given to Aryan.

The Bombay High Court (HC) had expedited Aryan’s bail hearing after it was rejected by the sessions court on October 20. Khan’s lawyer filed an application in the high court on the same day (October 20) and the HC posted a hearing for October 26.

A report by The Outlook on the matter says:

Lawyers have expressed surprise at the preferential treatment to celebrities though their clients’ bail applications have been pending in different matters for several months as the High Court has not given any date to hear them. Rough estimates put the number of pending cases in various courts of India at 3.25 crores.

“We have no problem with the early hearing of Aryan Khan’s case but why is the High Court treating different cases differently so far as giving dates to hear bail application is concerned,” said Anand S. Jondhale, a Supreme Court advocate who also practices in the Bombay High Court. Jondhale alleged that one of his clients has been in jail for several months and the Bombay High Court is not giving a date to hear the bail application.

“The law in the country doesn’t say that a Bollywood star’s son case will be heard on priority whereas other accused will languish in jail for an indefinite period,” he added.

Advocate Douglas Lopez says that although he had made repeated requests for an urgent hearing on the bail application filed by him on October 13, the matter is yet to be listed. He added that his client was a government employee in Telangana who has been wrongly framed in a case of abduction. He has been in jail for about two months and is at risk of losing his job if his case is not heard on priority.

Advocate Amrit Pal Singh Khalsa has expressed a similar grievance where his client Akash Ajit Nikam alias Akya has been lodged in jail since September 2015 in an allegedly false murder case.

“Thousands of bail applications have been pending for months and years and courts in the country don’t have time to hear them. But if a celebrity’s case comes, they postpone common citizens’ case and hear it on priority. Forget about common man, it is the court which is making a mockery of laws and rules of the country”, Khalsa opined.

These lawyers state that they aren’t questioning the bail granted to Aryan Khan but the injustice being done to commoners who have to wait for a long time to get even their applications listed for a hearing.