The Delhi High Court Wednesday granted protection
from coercive action to former NCB officer Sameer Wankhede, booked by the CBI
for allegedly demanding Rs 25 crore bribe to spare superstar Shah Rukh Khan's
son in a drugs case, his lawyer said.
Advocate Shubhi Srivastava, who filed the petition
on behalf of the former Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) officer, said Justice
Vikas Mahajan granted the protection from coercive steps for five days with the
liberty to approach the appropriate forum, which would be the Bombay High
Court.
Senior advocate Dayan Krishnan appeared for
Wankhede, who has been summoned by the CBI for questioning on Thursday.
The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) recently
filed an FIR against Wankhede for allegedly seeking Rs 25 crore bribe for not
framing the Bollywood star's son Aryan Khan in the drugs-on-cruise case.
Aryan was arrested by the NCB on October 3, 2021
after a raid on the Cordelia cruise ship. He was granted bail by the Bombay
High Court after three weeks as the agency failed to substantiate its charges
against him.
The CBI has booked Wankhede and others for alleged
criminal conspiracy and threat of extortion, besides under provisions
pertaining to bribery under the Prevention of Corruption Act on a complaint
from the NCB.
The CBI has alleged that the NCB, Mumbai Zone, had
received information in October 2021 related to the consumption and possession
of narcotics substances by various individuals on the private cruise ship and
that some of its officers conspired and obtained undue advantage in the form of
bribes from the alleged accused.
"It has been alleged that the said officials of
the Narcotics Control Bureau of Mumbai Zone, in order to obtain undue advantage
from the persons and others in the Case No. 94/2021... registered and
investigated under the supervision of then Zonal Director of Mumbai Zone of
NCB, had entered into criminal conspiracy with others and allegedly obtained
undue advantage in the form of bribes from the alleged accused," a CBI
spokesperson said earlier.
"It has also been alleged that the said persons
entered into conspiracy in order to extort an amount of Rs 25 crore (approx)
from family members of the alleged accused of the case No. 94/2021 of NCB,
Mumbai, by threatening them of the accusation of offences of possession of
narcotics substances as per the alleged directions of then zonal director (Wankhede)
being the supervisory officer," he said.
The NCB on May 27 last year filed a 6,000-page
chargesheet against 14 accused in the drugs-on-cruise case while giving a clean
chit to Aryan.
NCB officials said Aryan and five others were not
named in the agency's chargesheet due to the "lack of sufficient
evidence".
Last year, the anti-drugs agency NCB had also
instituted an inquiry after several lacunae were found in the probe of the
alleged drug seizure from the cruise ship.
Indian Revenue Service officer Sameer Wankhede was
the Mumbai Zonal Unit director of the bureau when the raid was conducted on the
cruise.