The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on Friday searched 29 locations in connection with the graft charge against former Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) official Sameer Wankhede and four others, related to the 2021 cruise ship case in which Bollywood actor Shah Rukh Khan’s son Aryan Khan was arrested and later given a clean chit.
As alleged, the officials had planned to extort about ₹25 crore from the family members of those shown as accused in the cruise case, by threatening to invoke the charges related to possession of drugs. “A token amount of ₹50 lakh as bribe was allegedly obtained in furtherance of this conspiracy by the said persons,” read the CBI statement.
“The searches were conducted in Mumbai, Delhi, Ranchi, Lucknow, Chennai and Guwahati. The case has been registered on a complaint from the NCB. Among those named as accused are the then NCB Mumbai zonal director, Mr. Wankhede; superintendent Vishwa Vijay Singh, intelligence officer Ashish Ranjan, one K.P. Gosavi and Sanvile D’Souza,” said an agency official.
As reported in the media, Mr. D’Souza had earlier accused Mr. Gosavi of taking ₹50 lakh from Mr. Khan’s manager through another person. Projected as an “independent witness” in the cruise case, Mr. Gosavi’s selfies with Mr. Aryan had gone viral after the searches on the ship on October 2, 2021. Now an accused in the CBI case, the then NCB superintendent was part of that search team. Earlier this week, he was dismissed from service for misconduct in another matter.
CBI’s statement
The CBI, in its statement, said the accused officials had entered into a criminal conspiracy with others to obtain “undue advantage in the form of bribes”, after the NCB’s Mumbai zone received information about consumption/possession of narcotics substances by various individuals on the ship.
On October 2, 2021, an NCB team under the supervision of Mr. Wankhede raided the ship and then arrested 20 persons, including Mr. Aryan. He spent 22 days in judicial custody before he was released on bail by the Bombay High Court.
In about a month, a special investigation team from the NCB Headquarters in Delhi took over the probe. The move came days after various charges were levelled against Mr. Wankhede. The NCB’s vigilance department also initiated an inquiry and found grave irregularities in the probe conducted by the first team. In May 2022, the NCB filed a charge sheet against 14 persons. Mr. Aryan and five others were not charged. The agency said no drugs had been found on him.
The same month, action against Mr. Wankhede, an Indian Revenue Service official who was posted with the NCB on deputation, was recommended to the competent authority for a “shoddy” initial probe into the cruise case. The accused official had already been sent back to his parent organisation on completion of his extended tenure with the NCB in December 2021. He was finally transferred to the Directorate-General of Taxpayer Services in Chennai.
