Cordelia case: I have been made a scapegoat, Sameer Wankhede tells HC

Sameer Wankhede, former Mumbai zonal director of the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB), told the Bombay high court on Monday that deputy director general Gyaneshwar Singh had made him a scapegoat in the 2021 Cordelia cruise drugs bust case.

Though Singh was aware of the progress in the probe and had approved actor Shah Rukh Khan’s son Aryan’s arrest, he made a complete turnaround while heading the NCB’s special enquiry team (SET) and held him (Wankhede) responsible for all the proceedings, the IRS officer claimed in an additional affidavit submitted to the HC.

Wankhede alleged that Singh had even acknowledged that K P Gosavi was roped in as an independent witness in the case.

The affidavit was filed in response to the affidavit submitted by the NCB on Wankhede’s petition that had urged the court to quash the Central Bureau of Investigation’s (CBI) FIR against him and four others.

Refuting the allegations of having made ‘selective arrest/s’, Wankhede said his then superiors had insisted upon seeking police custody of Aryan Khan.

The affidavit said that his friend Viral Rajan, with whom he and his wife had visited Maldives, was asked to implicate him (Wankhede) for possessing disproportionate assets.

Wankhede has claimed that Singh is seeking a vendetta for the complaint he had made against him to the National Commission of Scheduled Tribes in September 2022 for falsely framing him on charges of corruption in the cruise drugs bust case.

The affidavit further alleged that one of the witnesses, Vijay Pratap Singh, informed him that Sanville D’Souza, one of the witnesses in the SET enquiry, had been coerced to implicate him but D’Souza had refused to give false testimony.

With regards Singh being aware of the presence of Gosavi on the night of the raid, the affidavit said after he (Wankhede) informed Singh about Gosavi, Singh sent him a draft note affirming and justifying the alleged actions of Gosavi and his visit to the NCB office as a panch witness and mishandling of Aryan.

The affidavit stated that as Singh was a senior IPS officer he could not claim ignorance of Criminal Procedure Code provisions under which Gosavi was allowed to be present during the raid and thereafter at the NCB office.

The CBI on May 11 booked Wankhede, two former NCB officers, Gosavi and D’souza, for allegedly conspiring to extort ₹25 crore from Shah Rukh Khan in exchange of not booking his son in the Cordelia case. The FIR was based on the findings recorded by Singh in his SET probe report.