Sameer Wankhede moves Bombay HC seeking quashing of CBI FIR in Aryan Khan case

The Bombay High Court will hear former Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) director Sameer Wankhede’s plea wherein he sought quashing of a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) FIR filed against him. The IRS officer further claimed in his petition with the High Court that the CBI FIR against him is an act of revenge. Wankhede’s plea was mentioned before a vacation bench of Justices Sharmila Deshmukh and Arif Doctor. 

Wankhede told news agency ANI ahead of the hearing: “There was an allegation of corruption against me earlier also and at that time the Mumbai Police investigated it and did not find any evidence against me. Nothing will be found even on the allegations by the CBI”. 

The CBI claimed in its FIR that Wankhede allegedly demanded a bribe of Rs 25 crore from Bollywood superstar Shah Rukh Khan for not implicating his son Aryan Khan in the Cordelia cruise drug bust case in 2021. The central agency booked Wankhede and others for alleged criminal conspiracy (120 B IPC), and threat of extortion (388 IPC) besides provisions related to bribery under the Prevention of Corruption Act on a complaint from the NCB.  

The NCB SET, led by Deputy Director General Gyaneshwar Singh, found evidences of corruption, misconduct and violation of civil service rules on Wankhede’s part in their probe. The central agency accused Wankhede of modifying the information note to include the names of Aryan Khan and Arbaaz while dropping the names of other suspects, India Today reported.  

Aryan Khan was arrested in the alleged drug bust case on the Cordelia cruise ship in October 2021. A coordinated search operation was launched on Friday at 29 locations in Mumbai, Delhi, Chennai, Ranchi, Lucknow, and Guwahati after the FIR against Wankhede, then NCB Superintendent Vishwa Vijay Singh, Intelligence Officer Ashish Ranjan, and private persons KP Gosavi and Sanvile D’Souza was filed.  

The agency stated Wankhede and his team failed to prepare formal documents for the seizure of phones. The SET further stated that there were several procedural lapses in Aryan Khan’s arrest. These included bringing Aryan Khan and Arbaaz to the NCB office in a private vehicle belonging to KP Gosavi instead of an official car. The NCB SET also found an audio recording of Aryan Khan procured by KP Gosavi.  

The SET collected CCTV equipment from the NCB office to verify the facts of the case, only to find out that the footage was corrupted. The DVR and hard disk submitted by the NCB Mumbai office were different, implying an attempt to hide critical information.  

As a part of the SET probe, the agency also discovered serious misconduct on part of Sameer Wankhede himself. These included dubious foreign trips, misreported expenses, underreported income. As per this probe, Wankhede and his family undertook 6 private foreign trips between 2017 and 2021 to destinations like Ireland, Portugal, South Africa, the UK, and the Maldives. Declared spending on these visits is lower than the actual spend, as per the NCB SET.  

 (With India Today inputs) 

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