By ANI
PUNE: Following the Narcotics Control Bureau’s (NCB) clean chit to Bollywood actor Shah Rukh Khan’s son Aryan Khan, Maharashtra Home Minister Dilip Walse-Patil on Saturday sought action against former NCB official Sameer Wankhede.
“The decision of the judiciary has come. There was no truth in the allegation against Aryan Khan and that is why his name has been removed from the chargesheet. I think that the Center has also taken cognizance of this whole matter,” said Patil.
“There is also information about action against the concerned officer. If anyone is falsely implicating an innocent person, then action should be taken against them. I think the action will be taken against Sameer Wankhede,” added the Minister.
The Central Government on Friday directed the competent authority to take appropriate action against the former Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) official Sameer Wankhede for his shoddy investigation into the cruise drug bust case involving Aryan Khan, the son of Bollywood superstar Shah Rukh Khan.
The Centre’s action came soon after the NCB gave a clean chit to Aryan Khan and five others and has not filed any chargesheet against them citing the lack of evidence.
“It is learnt that the government has asked the competent authority to take appropriate action against former NCB official Sameer Wankhede for his shoddy investigation into the Aryan Khan drugs haul case. The government has already taken action in the case of Sameer Wankhede’s fake caste certificate case,” said sources.
The Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) on Friday filed a 6,000-page chargesheet against 14 accused in the cruise drug bust case which excludes the name of five others, including Bollywood star Shah Rukh Khan’s son Aryan Khan, who was earlier arrested in the case.
The NCB had dropped drugs charges against Aryan Khan in the drugs case citing a lack of evidence against him. NCB chief, SN Pradhan said that WhatsApp chats without physical evidence hold “no value”.
Meanwhile, former NCB official Sameer Wankhede refuted to comment on the latest development in the case, saying that he is not a part of this drugs law enforcement agency anymore and will only give a written reply if asked about the matter.
An NCB team busted an alleged drugs party on the Cordelia Cruise ship which was on its way to Goa at mid-sea on October 2 night. Eight persons were arrested 20 people, including Aryan Khan, along with other accused Arbaaz Merchant and Munmun Dhamecha the case.
Aryan Khan, Arbaaz Merchant and Munmun Dhamecha were granted bail by the Bombay High Court on 28 October 2021.
The NCB team did a “shoddy” probe and the SIT created to re-investigate the case found “grave irregularities” in their action like not conducting mandatory medical test of the accused, no video recording of the raids or no corroborative evidence against WhatsApp chats.
Narcotics Control Bureau director-general SN Pradhan told PTI it was a case of “underwhelming evidence” as compared to the golden principle of gathering “overwhelming evidence” against the accused.
The NCB also said in a statement it applied “the touchstone of the principle of proof beyond reasonable doubt” while re-probing this case.
SIT sleuths found the NCB team did many “grave irregularities” and were allegedly just trying to “implicate” Aryan in this case.
The NCB on Friday filed a nearly 6,000-page charge sheet before a Mumbai court against 14 accused in this case of 2021 even as it did not charge six, including Aryan, due to “lack of sufficient evidence.”
The charge sheet has a number of annexures like exhibits of a number of WhatsApp chats, statements of witnesses and accused and other technical details with the operative portion being about 400 pages.
The court is expected to take its cognisance soon.
“The SIT found there was neither an intent to act nor there was actual act by those who have not been charged. We, however, have physical evidence in the case of the 14 accused,” Pradhan said.
Those not named or given a clean chit in the charge sheet, filed under various sections of the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act (NDPS), include Aryan, Samir Sehgal, Manav Singhal, Bhaskar Arora, Gopal Ji Anand and Avin Sahu.
The accused named in the charge sheet are Vikrant Chokkar, Mohak Jaswal, Ishmeet S Chadha, Gomit Chopra, Abdul Kadar Shaikh, Shreyas Surendra Nair, Manish Rajgarhia, Chinedu Igwe, Shivraj R Harijan, Nupur Satija, Okoro Uzeoma, Arbaaz Merchant, Mummun Dhamecha and Aachit Kumar.
These 14, according to NCB officers, have been charged by-and-large under sections that deal with consumption/possession of small quantities of drugs and conspiracy under the anti-narcotics law.
These offences carry a punishment of about one year, officials said.
NCB officials said there were gaps in probe at virtually every stage of this case as they said “similar sections” of the NDPS were slapped against all of them while rounding them off from the cruise.
Like in the case of Avin Sahu, the NCB officer said, the accused had no drugs on his person but he “admitted” to have consumed drugs but then no medical test was done to corroborate that.
In the case of Mohak Jaiswal, no drugs were found from him but it was found during SIT investigation that he “procured drugs” for his friends.
Jaiswal, hence, has been chargesheeted.
The SIT also let off four of the cruise organisers as it went through the “contract” they had inked for organising the cruise party and it was found that they were only responsible for event management and had no knowledge about other things including personal frisking of the participants.
“We have filed the charge sheet on the basis of whatever was found by our special investigation team on the last date of filing the charge sheet,” Pradhan said.
He added that no “corroborative evidence” could be found against Aryan and 5 others who have been let off.
Asked if this was the end of the probe in the case or will there be a supplementary charge sheet, the DG said, “as of now you can say, yes, the investigation is done but there are all possibilities in case some fresh set of facts come to light.”
Talking about the role of Khan, who spent 26 days in jail before getting bail in the case, NCB deputy director-general (operations) and SIT chief Sanjay Kumar Singh said the “basic premise” that his friend (Arbaaz Merchant) was carrying drugs for him has not been proven and was found to be “fallacious”.
“His friend (Arbaaz Merchant) denied that he carried drugs for Aryan Khan.
In fact, he told the SIT that Aryan Khan had told him that no drugs should be brought on the cruise as NCB was very active,” Singh said.
He said no evidence was found against Aryan to corroborate that he either consumed, procured or was in any conspiracy, including international linkages with regard to narcotics, and hence the charges against him do not stand legal scrutiny.
While there was no evidence against Aryan in the current case, the charge sheet, according to officials, mentions his statement where he accepted “smoking ganja (cannabis)” and “doing charas” in the past.
The agency has also found his phone chats where he is talking about some drugs with his friends earlier, officials said.
The SIT head said “no medical examination” was done by the NCB team after arresting him to prove if he consumed drugs.
He added “no videography” was done by the NCB team, under its then Mumbai zonal director Sameer Wankhede, of the raids conducted by the agency on the Cordelia cruise on the night of October 2-3 last year.
The SIT also found all the accused were not essentially inter-connected and so bracketed them under 6-7 sub-groups in the charge sheet defining their limited roles.
Singh said Aryan’s phone was seized but “legal procedures were not followed” while opening it, adding “Right from the start the seizure of the mobile phone was questionable.”
He said the statement of deceased witness in this case Prabhakar Sail was recorded by the SIT and he told them that he was “made to sign on blank papers” and he did not see the drugs seizure on the cruise.
Sail had made allegations that NCB officials were probably looking to extort some money from Aryan’s family in return for saving him.
The NCB called him hostile before he died in April.
The cause of his death was reported to be a heart attack.
Another witness of the case who is in jail at present in a Maharashtra police case, Kiran Gosavi, supported the NCB action that was undertaken on that day in October, he said.
When asked if any action would be taken against the then Mumbai team headed by Wankhede, Pradhan said “we cannot immediately jump to accuse the Mumbai unit. they must have had something and to probe this there is another SIT.”
(With PTI Inputs)
