The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Thursday knowledgeable the Bombay Excessive Courtroom that it’s going to not arrest Sameer Wankhede, former district director of the Narcotics Management Bureau’s Mumbai unit, in a cash laundering case until February 20.
Wankhede final week filed a petition with the Supreme Courtroom searching for to quash the case introduced by the ED and, by the use of an interim order, stay within the investigation and be shielded from any coercive motion.
A division bench of Justices BD Naik and NR Borkar mentioned that attributable to time constraints on Thursday and Friday and because the courts are usually not engaged on Monday (February 19), they won’t be able to listen to the petition until Tuesday (February 20).
The bench mentioned the matter must be heard at size and requested advocate Sandesh Patil, representing the ED, to make clear whether or not the company intends to arrest Wankhede until then.
After searching for directions from officers involved, Patel instructed the courtroom that the company wouldn’t arrest Wankhede until February 20.
The courtroom accepted the assertion and despatched a request for listening to to the February 20 session.
Patil submitted to the courtroom that because the ECIR was transferred to the ED workplace in Delhi, Wankhede ought to method the courtroom there as the reason for motion lies in that jurisdiction.
Nevertheless, Abad Ponda, Wankhede’s lawyer, mentioned that when the IPS officer moved the Delhi courtroom in opposition to the CBI’s corruption and extortion case, the unique offense (on the premise of which the IRS had launched its investigation), he was requested to method the Mumbai courtroom.
Ponda additionally mentioned that Wankhede was final yr granted interim safety by the HC from duress within the CBI case and this continues.
The ED registered a cash laundering case in opposition to Wankhede after it took cognizance of a CBI FIR on an alleged bribe demand of Rs 25 crore from the household of movie star Shah Rukh Khan to spare his son in a drug case.
Wankhede, an Indian Income Service (IRS) worker from the Customs and Oblique Excise workers in 2008, mentioned in his confession that the Excise Directorate’s case “smacks of malice and vendetta”.
Wankhede claimed that whereas the ECIR was registered final yr, summons have now been issued to some NCB officers after he filed a criticism in opposition to NCB Deputy Director Gyaneshwar Singh final month earlier than a Delhi courtroom searching for motion underneath the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe (Prevention of Atrocities). Signify.
He additionally alleged that Singh and some highly effective folks unleashed businesses like CBI, ED and NCB to repair him in some instances.
Wankhede was booked by the CBI in Might final yr on prices of searching for a bribe price Rs 25 crore to not implicate Aryan Khan, Shah Rukh Khan’s son, within the drug case in the course of the cruise.
The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has booked Wankhede and others for alleged prison conspiracy (120-B IPC), extortion menace (388 IPC) together with provisions associated to bribery underneath the Prevention of Corruption Act on the criticism of the NCB.
Aryan Khan was arrested within the alleged drug bust case on board the Cordelia cruise ship on October 2, 2021. Later, the NCB filed a chargesheet within the cruise drug case in opposition to 14 accused however gave a transparent message to Aryan Khan.
The extremely publicized case took a flip when an “impartial witness” claimed in 2021 {that a} RBI official and different folks had demanded Rs 25 crore to permit Aryan Khan’s exit.
The NCB later carried out an inside vigilance investigation in opposition to Wankhede and others and shared its contents with the CBI which resulted in a case being registered in opposition to him.