Center orders departmental inquiry against Sameer Wankhede: After the clean chit given to Aryan Khan in the Cordelia Cruises drugs case, NCB is now under question. According to sources, a departmental inquiry has been ordered against former NCB zonal director Sameer Wankhede, who arrested Aryan Khan. This investigation is being done at the behest of the Union Home Ministry. If proven guilty, strict action can be taken against Wankhede. After being embroiled in controversy in the Aryan case, he has been transferred to the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI).
Also read: No evidence Aryan Khan was part of larger narcotics conspiracy: NCB’s Special Investigation Team
According to the ANI report, it is learned that the government has asked the competent authorities to take appropriate action for the wrong investigation of former NCB officer Sameer Wankhede in Aryan Khan drugs case. The government has already taken action in the fake caste certificate case of Sameer Wankhede.
Lapses found in NCB probe: DG Pradhan
In this case, 19 people including Aryan were made accused. However, after the question raised on the credibility of NCB in this case, DG SN Pradhan came before the media and said that the investigation is not complete yet, if the evidence is found, a supplementary charge sheet will be filed. Pradhan also said that the NCB’s first team (Sameer Wankhede) in this case had committed several lapses during the investigation. Therefore, if found guilty, action will be taken against him.
DG SN Pradhan said that if the first investigation team was not at fault, then why would the SIT take over the investigation? Some shortcomings remained, only then the SIT took the case. To remove these shortcomings or at least further action was taken keeping this in mind. Not only this, the NCB DG has indicated that a departmental inquiry may be initiated against the NCB officials who raided the cruise on the allegation of lapses during the raid and investigation.
Center orders departmental inquiry against Sameer Wankhede
NCB has filed a charge sheet of 6 thousand pages in this case, in which 14 out of 20 accused are named. Aryan’s name is not included in this. Apart from Aryan, the names of 5 other accused arrested in this case are not included in the chargesheet due to lack of evidence. These include Evin Shahu, Gopal Ji Anando, Sameer Saighan, Bhaskar Arora and Manav Singhli. In the case, the investigating agency had failed to file the chargesheet within the stipulated time, after which the court had given it an additional time of two months in March. It is worth noting that NCB had made Aryan Khan and 19 other people accused in this case. Aryan was arrested by the NCB on October 2 from a cruise ship in the coastal area of Mumbai.
Malik had also made many serious allegations against Wankhede
Nawab Malik, the Minorities Welfare Minister in the Maharashtra government, had also made many serious allegations against Sameer Wankhede, including allegations of taking bribe from the accused in the Aryan case, getting fake caste certificates and converting religion to second marriage. After Malik’s allegations, the SIT team of NCB has also recorded Wankhede’s statement.