Plea Filed in Bombay HC Against NCB, CBI Top Brass for False Allegations Against Sameer Wankhede in Aryan Khan Drug Case

New Delhi: A plea has been filed in the Bombay High Court seeking a direction to prosecute NCB's top officer Gyaneshwar Singh and other officials of anti drug agency and the CBI for allegedly preparing forged records and filing false and misleading affidavit before it in a petition filed by IRS officer Sameer Wankhede to quash the alleged bribery case lodged against him in connection with Aryan Khan drug case.

Advocate Ishwarlal Agarwal filed the application for intervention in the petition filed by Wankhede seeking action against the officials under section 340 of Criminal Procedure Code.

He contended that the FIR of extortion and bribe was registered with undue haste and without recording statement of actor Shah Rukh Khan, Pooja Dadlani and others and the CBI wanted to arrest Wankhede, which is a sufficient ground to prove mala fide of the CBI officials.

"The enquiry by NCB is conducted by Gyaneshwar Singh, who himself is a witness in the case and therefore enquiry is vitiated as per the Supreme Court's judgement in 'Union of India vs. Ram Lakhan Sharma' (2018). Therefore, FIR registered by CBI on the basis of such vitiated enquiry report of NCB is also vitiated. Since case was against public servant, the CBI was bound to conduct preliminary enquiry before registering FIR as per Supreme Court and the High Court judgement," it said.

The intervention application also asked if version of NCB was found to be prima facie correct by the CBI then they should have made Shah Rukh Khan, Pooja Dadlani, Aryan Khan as accused for giving a bribe, which is an offence under section 12 of Prevention of Corruption Act and Section 202 of IPC.

"The sound proofs, chats and audio/video recordings given by Wankhede were never disputed by the CBI and NCB and are sufficient proofs of mala fide of NCB officials and Gyaneshwar Singh that forged record is created to save Aryan Khan from serious charges of drug consumption and other conspiracy," it contended.

Further, the desired investigation to enquire about Aryan Khans international drug connections to purchase commercial quantity of drugs and his chats with star kids like Navya Naveli Nanda and others was not done. This is a sufficient ground to draw an inference of malafides of officials of NCB, it claimed.

"As per law CBI is duty bound to investigate fairly and should investigate the version of Sameer Wankhede and prosecute Aryan Khan, Dnyaneshwar Singh and others," it maintained.

The intervenor also asked the High Court to impose a heavy cost around Rs 5 crore and above upon CBI and NCB for defending their action on the basis of frivolous and unlawful grounds and thereby wasting valuable time of the court.

Seeking further probe against Aryan Khan and others, he also claimed that the action taken by the CBI in requesting a restraint order against Wankhede, to restrain him from the disclosure of chat messages and interviews, was unfounded as no reasons have been provided to demonstrate any harm or inaccuracies in the information provided Wankhede.

"This goes against the principles of a fair and open trial, as well as the ruling of the Nine Judge Bench of the Honorable Supreme Court in the case of 'Naresh Shridhar Mirajkar vs State of Maharashtra' (1996)," it claimed.

The CBI lodged an FIR on May 11, 2023 on allegation of demand of Rs 25 crore from Bollywood's actor, Shahrukh Khan upon arrest of his son Aryan in a case in 2021.

Wankhede, who headed the probe team, filed the plea in the High Court for quashing the FIR lodged upon a complaint by the NCB, saying it has been registered after more than one and half year on blatantly false motive with ill-will to harass him, as the investigation was conducted under direct supervision and control of his seniors on hourly basis. He also said the Mumbai police had already conducted a probe on similar charges and closed the case.