What the CBI FIR says about Sameer Wankhede of Aryan Khan case

Sameer Wankhede, former zonal director of the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB), had allowed a “free hand” to the private person and independent witness, KP Gosavi in the proceedings against actor Shah Rukh Khan’s son Aryan Khan in October 2021, to give the impression that Gosavi was an NCB officer, according to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) first information report (FIR) filed last week.

The FIR, filed last week and which names Wankhede, former SP of NCB Vishwa Vijay Singh, intelligence officer of NCB Ashish Ranjan and two private persons – Gosavi and his aide Sanvile D’Souza as accused, was made public on Monday.

It has also been revealed that Wankhede’s team had changed the original raid information report, search of persons was not documented, and few suspects were even allowed to walk-free.

Wankhede, according to CBI, “in the capacity of supervisory officer had directed to take Gosavi and Prabhakar Sail as the independent witnesses in the proceedings against the accused and directed Singh to let Gosavi handle the accused while taking him to NCB office, thereby allowing a freehand to Gosavi and others in order to create such a visual impression of Gosavi having the custody of the accused and escorting/dragging him towards NCB office”.

This was part of the conspiracy to extort ₹25 crore from Khan’s family for not framing his son, which was settled at ₹18 crore. A token amount of ₹50 lakh was, in fact, taken by Gosavi but later a part of this amount was returned, the FIR said.

An Indian Revenue Service (IRS) officer, Wankhede, who has since been transferred from the NCB, led a team of officers including Singh, Gosavi and another witness Prabhakar Sail on the night of October 2, 2021, to raid Cordelia ship at the International Cruise Terminal at Green Gate off the Mumbai coast.

It was claimed that 13 grams of cocaine, 5 grams of mephedrone, 21 grams of marijuana, 22 pills of MDMA (ecstasy), and ₹1.33 lakh in cash was seized from the vessel. It also intercepted 14 people, and after hours of interrogation, placed Aryan (24), Arbaaz Merchant (26), and Munmum Dhamecha (28) under arrest on October 3.

Subsequently, the agency arrested 17 more people in connection with the raid.

Aryan was given a clean chit by a special enquiry team (SET) of the NCB in May 2022 and an internal vigilance enquiry was done against Wankhede and others, on which the CBI FIR is based.

“The enquiry by the SET has revealed that the accused persons (referring to people arrested by Wankhede’s team including Aryan) were brought to the NCB office in a private vehicle of the independent witness KP Gosavi. It appeared that the presence of the independent witness Gosavi around accused persons was created intentionally in such a manner so as to give the impression that Gosavi was an NCB personnel even though there were NCB personnel to handle the custody of the accused persons,” CBI FIR states.

Gosavi was allowed to come to the NCB office after the raid which is against the norms for an independent witness. In this manner, Gosavi took the freedom and clicked selfies and recorded the voice note of an accused, it adds.

The agency said, “it was this position that allowed Gosavi and D’Souza amongst others to enter into conspiracy to extort an amount of ₹25 crore from the family members of the alleged accused, Aryan Khan by threatening them of the accusation of offences of possession of narcotics substances”.

About the raid, SET, according to the FIR, found that “names of certain suspects were dropped from the 1st information note – ‘I-Note’ and the names of certain other accused were included subsequently through modification to suit their proceedings. The initial I-Note contained 27 names and the modified I-Note contained only 10 names”.

It says that a number of passengers of Cordelia were searched.

“The search of many other persons whose names were available with the NCB officials, as suspected persons, was done but the same was not documented. A few persons who were suspected were also allowed to leave without any documentation,” FIR said.

Further enquiries, the FIR stated, have been done in the matters of “allegations of criminal misconduct and corrupt practices of Wankhede and Ashish Ranjan independently, which could not sufficiently justify their acquired assets as per their declared income”.

“It has also come to the notice of the vigilance branch of NCB that Wankhede had not properly explained his foreign visits and had apparently mis-declared the expenditure on his foreign travels. He has also not declared the source of his foreign visits properly”, it said.

Besides, it has been revealed that Wankhede had indulged in the sale and purchase of expensive wrist watches with a private entity – Viral Ranjan, without intimating the department (NCB or his parent cadre – Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs).