ED in Bombay HC: 'Won't arrest Sameer Wankhede till next hearing'

The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has given an undertaking in Bombay HC that it will not arrest NCB's former Mumbai Zonal Director Sameer Wankhede till the next hearing in the money laundering case, news agency ANI reported on Thursday. The ED is probing Wankhede for alleged money laundering. Wankhede has challenged the ED case in the Bombay HC and has sought to quash the case against him. The high court will next hear the matter on February 20.

On Tuesday, the central probe agency told the high court that it had transferred the case to its Delhi office. Wankhede, who has moved the high court here seeking to quash the case, should instead move the Delhi High Court, it said. 

Wankhede, who approached the Bombay High Court last week, has also sought a temporary stay to the investigation, and protection from "coercive action" (such as arrest) until his petition is decided. His lawyer Aabad Ponda argued before a division bench that the ED's action of transferring the probe was "malafide".

"Till Friday, the ED was sending summons to persons asking them to appear before its Mumbai office. But now after this petition was filed by Wankhede, the probe has been transferred to Delhi," Ponda said. He claimed that this was done only to ensure that Wankhede did not get a hearing on Thursday before the Bombay HC which had last year granted him interim protection from coercive action in a case of corruption and extortion registered by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI).

Advocate Hiten Venegaonkar, appearing for the ED, defended the transfer of the probe citing administrative reasons. "The entire proceedings are already transferred to Delhi. The entire cause of action lies there now. All papers have been sent to Delhi. There is nothing here now."

The ED registered a money laundering case against him after taking cognisance of the CBI’s First Information Report (FIR) where he was accused of demanding Rs 25 crore bribe from Bollywood superstar Shah Rukh Khan’s family to spare his son Aryan Khan in an alleged drugs case. 

Wankhede, a 2008-batch Indian Revenue Service (IRS) officer of the Customs and Indirect Taxes cadre, in his plea said the ED’s case "smacks of malice and vendetta". Wankhede shot to fame after he arrested Shah Rukh Khan's son Aryan Khan in an alleged drug seizure onboard the Cordelia cruise ship in October 2021. 

Later, the NCB filed a charge sheet against 14 accused in the case but gave a clean chit to Aryan. The case took a completely different turn when an 'independent witness' claimed that Rs 25 crore was demanded by an NCB official and others to let off Aryan Khan, leading to an internal vigilance probe against Wankhede by the NCB. 

(With inputs from PTI)