HC extends Sameer Wankhede’s interim protection till June 8, restrains him from speaking to media
Mumbai The Bombay high court on Monday extended till June 8 the interim protection from coercive action granted to Sameer Wankhede, NCB’s former Mumbai zonal director, in connection with a corruption case in which he is accused of demanding ₹25 crore from actor Shah Rukh Khan for letting off his son Aryan in the 2021 Cordelia cruise drug bust case
Mumbai The Bombay high court on Monday extended till June 8 the interim protection from coercive action granted to Sameer Wankhede, NCB’s former Mumbai zonal director, in connection with a corruption case in which he is accused of demanding ₹25 crore from actor Shah Rukh Khan for letting off his son Aryan in the 2021 Cordelia cruise drug bust case.
However, the relief is subject to the IRS officer submitting an undertaking, by Monday evening, that he will not speak to the media or circulate any information related to the petition or the FIR the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) registered against him and four others on May 11, and tamper with evidence.
Wankhede has moved the HC seeking to quash the FIR on grounds that it was registered long after the stipulated period of four months under section 17A of the Prevention of Corruption Act had lapsed.
Senior advocate Aabad Ponda, representing Wankhede, told a division bench of justice Abhay Ahuja and justice M M Sathaye that following the HC’s directions on Friday, he appeared for the CBI questioning on Saturday and Sunday.
CBI’s counsel, Kuldeep Patil, drew the bench’s attention to the WhatsApp chats between Wankhede and actor Shah Rukh Khan from October 3 to 15, 2021, which were circulated in the media by the IRS officer after his petition was heard on Friday.
When the bench questioned Wankhede as to how he could disclose the chats while the matter was sub-judice, Ponda said the chats were part of the petition and nothing beyond the petition was made available to the media. The chats were appended to Wankhede’s petition to purportedly show that he had not made any demand for a bribe and the actor had in fact lauded his efforts as an upright officer to reform Aryan.
However, Patil said, “These chats relate to the time when Wankhede was commanding the investigation. The father was concerned with the life and liberty of his son, who was in the NCB’s custody. A request made by the father is being used as a character certificate by the applicant.”
The CBI’s counsel then opposed Wankhede’s request for continuation of interim protection and said that the May 19 order (when the interim protection was granted) would come in the way of any action that the CBI would want to take under section 41A of the Criminal Procedure Code. He also claimed that this would prejudice the investigating officer.
As the probe was going on, Patil added, Wankhede should not be allowed to transmit any messages to the media or to any other person with respect to the subject matter of the FIR.
The bench was then informed by Ponda that the CBI FIR was a smokescreen to cover up the failure of authorities to grant sanction to the NCB for an enquiry within the prescribed period of four months under section 17A of the Prevention of Corruption Act.
Dismissing the charge, advocate Manisha Jagtap, representing the NCB’s special enquiry team (SET), submitted an affidavit stating that approval for an internal probe was taken a few days after the cruise drug bust on October 2, 2021, and hence, the agency had not violated the conditions stipulated under the law. The SET had on October 25 begun probing the alleged corrupt practices by the NCB’s Mumbai zonal officers in the drug bust case, the affidavit added.
After hearing the submissions, the HC directed extension of the interim protection to Wankhede till June 8, the next date of hearing, and asked the CBI to file a detailed reply to the petition by June 3.
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