Aryan Khan drugs case: CBI books ex-NCB officer Sameer Wankhede, four others, for corruption
The men were accused of conspiring to extort ₹25 crore from the family of one of those in the drugs case in lieu of not booking him, and subsequently obtaining a bribe of ₹50 lakh from them, CBI officials said. The agency invoked relevant sections of the Indian Penal Code and the Prevention of Corruption Act in the case
MUMBAI: The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on Friday registered a corruption case against five persons, including Sameer Wankhede, Indian Revenue Service (IRS) officer and former Mumbai zonal director of the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB), in connection with the October 2021 Cordelia cruise drug bust case in which Bollywood actor Shah Rukh Khan’s son Aryan was arrested.
Apart from Wankhede, the CBI FIR names Vishwa Vijay Singh, then superintendent, NCB, and Ashish Ranjan, then intelligence officer of the NCB’s Mumbai zonal unit, as well as K P Gosavi, Sanville D’Souza and other “unknown persons”.
The men were accused of conspiring to extort ₹25 crore from the family of one of those in the drugs case in lieu of not booking him, and subsequently obtaining a bribe of ₹50 lakh from them, CBI officials said. The agency invoked relevant sections of the Indian Penal Code and the Prevention of Corruption Act in the case.
When HT contacted Wankhede, he dismissed the CBI’s charges, calling them the result of “vendetta” on the part of a few NCB officials. “The allegations that I had asked for ₹25 crore are false,” he said. “The CBI’s action today has come a year and a half after the incident. This is after Mumbai police’s SIT probed the same allegations and filed a closure report, which is a matter of record. But I am a disciplined officer and I will fight these false allegations legally, till my last drop of blood.”
Wankhede added that he had apprehended the “vendetta”, as he had earlier moved the National Commission for Scheduled Castes and had in January also moved the Bombay high court, seeking the opportunity to defend himself against the allegations. “Today, a 14-man team searched my house where my wife and our two-year-old twins were also present,” he said. “They went to the houses of my 77-year-old father, who stays alone, my old in-laws and my sister who stays alone with her kids. Is this how you treat a disciplined, patriotic officer? Is Sameer Wankhede a terrorist ? They could have first sought my explanation on the allegations.”
The NCB ‘s Mumbai zonal unit team had on October 2, 2021, conducted searches at the Cordelia cruise, which was in Mumbai and en route to Goa, after which the agency arrested actor Shah Rukh Khan’s son Aryan Khan, and several others, including two women. It claimed that it had seized some narcotics as well.
During the operation, all the suspects were searched and drugs like ‘MDMA/ Ecstasy, cocaine, MD (Mephedrone) and charas’ were allegedly recovered, NCB sources had said back then. In May 2022, however, the NCB gave a clean chit to Aryan Khan and five others in the case.
“It has been alleged that the said officials of the NCB’s Mumbai zone, in order to obtain undue advantage from the persons/others, earlier registered and investigated under the supervision of the then zonal director of Mumbai zone of NCB, had entered into a criminal conspiracy with others and had allegedly obtained undue advantage in the form of bribes from the alleged accused,” CBI officers said.
“Information was received in the NCB’s Mumbai zone during October 2021 related to consumption/possession of narcotic substances by various individuals on the private cruise ship,” the CBI official said. “It was also alleged that the said persons entered into a conspiracy in order to extort an amount of approximately ₹25 crore from the family members of an accused, by threatening to book them for possession of narcotic substances, as per the alleged directions of the then zonal director being the supervisory officer,” the CBI officer said. “A token amount of ₹50 lakh as bribe was allegedly obtained in furtherance of this conspiracy by the said persons.”
After registering the case, on Friday the CBI conducted searches at 29 locations across Mumbai, Delhi, Ranchi, Lucknow, Chennai and Guwahati among others. “The searches led to the recovery of incriminating documents/articles/cash etc,” said the CBI officer.
The CBI’s action is in connection with the allegations that were made by an independent witness of the case, Prabhakar Sail, days after the NCB probe began, sources said. Sail, who claimed to be the driver/bodyguard of NCB case witness K P Gosavi, who has been named in the CBI case, had alleged in an affidavit that he had heard Gosavi discussing a ₹25-crore payoff deal to let off Aryan in the alleged drug seizure case. Sail died of a heart attack in April 2022.
When contacted, Sail’s lawyer Tushar Khandare said, “I am aware of the CBI action today. My client, Prabhakar Sail, had stood by his account that he was a witness to the conversation discussing a ₹25-crore payoff. He had appeared before the NCB and Mumbai police teams which enquired into the allegations and recorded his statement.”
Khandare added that he had submitted Sail’s affidavits to both the NCB and the police team in this regard. “There was absolutely no question of him having turned a hostile witness ever,” said Khandare, adding that he had not been contacted by the CBI yet.
A special investigation team of the NCB, which reinvestigated the case, had in May 2022 given a clean chit to Aryan Khan. Officials of the NCB, which had filed a chargesheet in a Mumbai court, said that Aryan and five others had not been named due to “lack of sufficient evidence”.
The NCB had then said that its special investigation team (SIT) had carried out the probe in an “objective manner” and that “the touchstone of the principle of proof beyond reasonable doubt had been applied”.
It had said, “Based on the investigation carried out by the SIT, a complaint against 14 persons under various sections of the NDPS Act is being filed (before a Mumbai court). Complaint against rest 6 persons is not being filed due to lack of sufficient evidence.” It added that all the accused persons were found in possession of narcotics except Aryan (Khan) and Mohak (Jaiswal).
The Sharad Pawar-led Nationalist Congress Party, reacting to the searches carried out by the CBI at the places of former NCB zonal director, alleged that he had misused government machinery to earn illegal income and had brought disrepute to the NCB. “It was former NCP minister Nawab Malik who single-handedly exposed the corrupt and immoral practices of Sameer Wankhede and the fact that he was carrying out raids against high-profile citizens only to squeeze money out of them,” said Mahesh Tapase, chief spokesperson, NCP.
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