Aryan Khan drugs case: Never demanded bribe from Shah Rukh Khan, says Sameer Wankhede

Mumbai: Nearly five years after the October 2-3, 2021, midnight raid on the Cordelia cruise from Mumbai to Goa and subsequent investigations in which Shah Rukh Khan’s son Aryan Khan was arrested, Indian Revenue Service officer Sameer Wankhede said on Monday that he had never sought or took bribe from the legendary actor.

Wankhede was then posted as the Mumbai-based Zonal Director of the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB).

Wankhede’s counsel Aabad Ponda, appearing before a division bench of the Bombay High Court comprising Chief Justice Shree Chandrashekhar and Justice Suman Shyam, said that the IRS officer never demanded or took bribe from Shah Rukh Khan.

The submission came during the hearing of Wankhede’s plea seeking to quash a First Information Report (FIR) filed against him by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) in May 2023 on corruption and bribery charges.

Ponda said that CBI has no evidence to establish that Wankhede demanded or received any bribe.

According to the FIR, Wankhede and the other accused allegedly demanded Rs 25 crore from the actor in exchange for giving a clean chit to Aryan Khan in the drugs case.

The Bombay High Court, on October 28, 2021, while giving bail to Aryan Khan, Arbaaz Merchant and Munmum Dhamecha, had observed, “There is hardly any positive evidence on record to convince this court that all the accused persons with common intention agreed to commit unlawful acts.”

In May 2022, Aryan Khan was given a clean chit by the NCB saying that the evidence was “insufficient”.

After this, the NCB also carried out an internal probe into the issue vis-a-vis the allegations against Wankhede.

The CBI had registered the case against Wankhede and others on charges of criminal conspiracy (Indian Penal Code section 120-B), threat of extortion (388 IPC), as well as bribery under the Prevention of Corruption Act on a complaint from the NCB.

Based on the CBI's FIR, the Enforcement Directorate also registered a case against Wankhede, accusing him of money laundering.