Sameer Wankhede not to be arrested till Feb 20: Probe agency to Bombay High Court

Sameer Wankhede not to be arrested till Feb 20: Probe agency to Bombay High Court

The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Thursday told the Bombay High Court that it would not take any coercive steps against Sameer Wankhede, former zonal director of Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) Mumbai, till February 20.

Wankhede had approached the High Court last week seeking to quash the case lodged by the ED and by way of an interim stay on the probe and protection from any coercive action.

The bench of Justices PD Naik and NR Borkar on Thursday said that due to paucity of time, they would not be able to conduct a detailed hearing on the issue. The bench noted that it would not be able to hear the plea until Tuesday (February 20).

The bench said the matter needs to be heard at length and asked advocate Sandesh Patil, appearing for the ED, to state if the agency intends to arrest Wankhede until then.

Patil, after seeking instructions from the concerned officials, told the court that the agency would not arrest Wankhede till February 20. The bench accepted the statement and posted the plea for hearing on February 20.

Patil submitted to the court that since the ED’s case had been transferred to its Delhi office, Wankhede should approach the court there as the cause of action lies in that jurisdiction.

Wankhede’s counsel Aabad Ponda, however, said when the IRS officer had moved the Delhi court against the CBI’s corruption and extortion case, which is the predicate offence (based on which ED launched its probe), he was asked to approach the Mumbai court.

He further said that in the CBI case, Wankhede was last year granted interim protection from coercive action by another bench of High Court which still continues.

The ED registered a money laundering case against Wankhede after taking cognisance of a CBI FIR in an alleged Rs 25-crore bribe demand from superstar Shah Rukh Khan’s family to spare his son in a drugs case.

Wankhede, a 2008-batch Indian Revenue Service (IRS) officer of the Customs and Indirect Taxes cadre, in his plea said the ED’s case “smacks of malice and vendetta”. Wankhede claimed while the ECIR was registered last year, summons have been now issued to some NCB officers after Wankhede filed a complaint against NCB’s deputy director Gyaneshwar Singh last month before a Delhi court seeking action against him under the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe (Prevention of Atrocities) Act.

He further alleged that Singh and a few powerful people in power have unleashed all agencies like the CBI, ED and NCB to fix him in some case.

Wankhede was booked by the CBI in May last year on charges of seeking Rs 25-crore bribe for not framing Shah Rukh Khan’s son Aryan Khan in the drugs-on-cruise case. Aryan Khan was arrested in the alleged drug bust case on the Cordelia cruise ship on October 2, 2021.

After allegations emerged, later, the case was transferred to a Special Investigation Team (SIT) of NCB which then filed a charge sheet in the drugs-on-cruise case against 14 accused but gave a clean chit to Aryan Khan.

The NCB also conducted an internal vigilance probe against Wankhede and others and shared the contents with the CBI leading to the registration of a case against him.

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