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Sameer Wankhede opposes government plea against CAT order
Indian Revenue Service (IRS) officer Sameer Wankhede on Monday opposed before the Delhi High Court the Centre’s petition challenging the Central Administrative Tribunal (CAT) order setting aside disciplinary charges framed against him in connection with the 2021 Cordelia cruise raid, contending that the framing of charges reflected the government’s mala fide and desperate attempt to stall his promotion and harass him.
Indian Revenue Service (IRS) officer Sameer Wankhede on Monday opposed before the Delhi High Court the Centre’s petition challenging the Central Administrative Tribunal (CAT) order setting aside disciplinary charges framed against him in connection with the 2021 Cordelia cruise raid, contending that the framing of charges reflected the government’s mala fide and desperate attempt to stall his promotion and harass him.
The action against Wankhede stems from a charge memorandum issued on August 18, 2025, alleging that the officer sought sensitive and confidential information from the Narcotics Control Bureau’s departmental legal adviser in June 2022 in relation to the probe into the Cordelia cruise case, despite having been formally relieved from the NCB six months prior. A second charge alleged that Wankhede had obtained an assurance from the legal advisor to “steer the probe towards a predetermined outcome for ulterior motives”.
The action, to be sure, was based on a call transcript between Wankhede and the NCB official, a copy of which was placed on record by the IRS officer before the Bombay High Court in his petition seeking quashing of the corruption and extortion case registered by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI).
Even as a bench of justices Anil Kshetarpal and Amit Mahajan on Monday reserved the verdict in Centre’s petition, Wankhede’s lawyer Nidhesh Gupta asserted that although charges were framed against his client on allegations of influencing the probe and obtaining assurances from the legal adviser, no action had been taken against the NCB’s departmental legal adviser.
“Here is a person who has been harassed. They (Centre) are so desperate. They somehow charge-sheeted him, so that they are not required to promote him. There is ex facie malafide from the manner in which you’ve issued the chargesheet. For all these reasons, the order deserves to be upheld. Here is a person who is standing against them,” Gupta said.
He further said that the charge memorandum was issued without granting him an opportunity to be heard.
Centre’s counsel Ravi Prakash, however, asserted that the charges framed against Wankhede were not vague but specific, and that there was no mala fide intent in proceeding against him, as the action was initiated after alleged misconduct on his part came to light. He said that the same were based on the transcript filed by Wankhede in the case pending before the Bombay High Court, in which he had specifically pleaded the date, time, persons involved, case reference and even admitted the same.
“The tribunal has read down the charges on vague grounds, but on the face value, it discloses the commission of misconduct on Wankhede’s part. The charges are specific, not vague, and there have been no questions of malafide on its part,” he added.
The CAT, on January 19, had quashed the charge memorandum, concluding that the same was vitiated by grave procedural impropriety, motivated and issued with malice. The tribunal had also held that the charges were vague and indefinite, contained bald and omnibus allegations without material particulars and even without a list of witnesses and the basis on which the charge memorandum was issued constituted the very substratum of the criminal proceedings pending before the Bombay High Court. The tribunal had noted that Centre had issued the charge, even though the high court in May 2023 had restrained the CBI from acting further against Wankhede.
Wankhede, while serving as the zonal director of the Mumbai NCB, made headlines in October 2021 when he arrested actor Shah Rukh Khan’s son Aryan Khan after raiding the Cordelia cruise ship. However, later, he came under scrutiny of multiple agencies, including the CBI and the Enforcement Directorate (ED) in July 2023, for allegedly demanding a ₹25 crore bribe from Shah Rukh Khan in exchange for not implicating Aryan Khan in the case.
