Cruise drug bust: CBI calls Sameer Wankhede for questioning today

The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has summoned Sameer Wankhede, former Mumbai zonal director of the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB), for questioning on Thursday as part of its probe into the October 2021 Cordelia cruise drug bust in which actor Shah Rukh Khan’s son Aryan was arrested

The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has summoned Sameer Wankhede, former Mumbai zonal director of the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB), for questioning on Thursday as part of its probe into the October 2021 Cordelia cruise drug bust in which actor Shah Rukh Khan’s son Aryan was arrested. He will record his statement at the CBI’s Mumbai office, an officer from the agency said.

Mumbai, India - January 06, 2023: Sameer Wankhede, former Mumbai zonal director of the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB).

However, the Indian Revenue Service (IRS) officer is unlikely to be arrested soon, as the CBI on Wednesday assured the Delhi high court that it would not take any coercive action against him till Monday.

The CBI on Friday said that it had registered a corruption case against Wankhede, Vishwa Vijay Singh, then NCB superintendent, and Ashish Ranjan, then intelligence officer of the NCB’s Mumbai zonal unit, as well as private individuals K P Gosavi, Sanville D’Souza, and unknown persons under the Indian Penal Code and the Prevention of Corruption Act.

On Wednesday, Wankhede withdrew a petition he had filed in the Delhi high court seeking a stay on the CBI summons, and directions to the agency for a free and fair investigation and to act on the complaints he had made against certain individuals.

The CBI counsel, Nikhil Goel, contended that the petition could not be filed in Delhi as the subject matter was from Maharashtra.

Goel orally assured the HC that “the agency would not do anything till Monday”, an indication that there would be no action against Wankhede till then. However, when the court started recording the CBI counsel’s statement, based on a request by Wankhede’s lawyers, Goel urged the HC not to incorporate his assurance in its order.

“My IO (investigating officer) is standing here. I don’t want anything to be recorded... If he (Wankhede) writes an email, he will get a response. I am here; he can come back tomorrow to my lord,” Goel said.

After the court told Wankhede that he had the liberty to approach the appropriate forum in Mumbai, the IRS officer withdrew his plea.

The CBI has accused the five people booked in the case of conspiring to extort ₹25 crore from Shah Rukh Khan in lieu of not booking his son for possessing narcotics, and subsequently obtaining a bribe of ₹50 lakh from the actor.

Wankhede had earlier dismissed the CBI’s charges, calling them the result of a “vendetta” on the part of a few NCB officials.

On October 2, 2021, a team from the NCB’s Mumbai zonal unit carried out a search on the Goa-bound Cordelia and arrested Aryan Khan, his friend Arbaaz Merchant, and others, including two women. The NCB claimed that it had seized some narcotics as well. In May 2022, the NCB gave a clean chit to Aryan and five others.

The CBI’s case is connected to the revelations made by Prabhakar Sail, an independent witness in the NCB case. In an affidavit, Sail, who worked as a driver for K P Gosavi, another witness in the NCB case and one of the accused in the CBI FIR, alleged that he had overheard telephonic conversations between Gosavi and another person discussing a ₹25-crore deal to let off Aryan. Sail died of a heart attack in April 2022.

Of the 27 people rounded up during the search of passengers, the NCB team had allegedly chosen to put 10 names in its first information note, the CBI has said in its FIR registered on May 11. Those whose names were dropped from the list included a peddler who had allegedly supplied charas to Arbaaz, the agency has claimed.

The FIR has also alleged that the NCB officers placed Gosavi around the accused persons “to give an impression that Gosavi was an NCB officer”. “In this manner, Gosavi clicked selfies and recorded the voice note of an accused. It was this position that allowed Gosavi and his aide Sanvile D’Souza amongst others to conspire to extort ₹25 crore from the family members of Aryan Khan”.