MUMBAI: The Bombay High Court on Thursday stayed multiple inquiries initiated by the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) against its former Mumbai zonal director, Sameer Wankhede, over alleged irregularities in two cases he had supervised.
Event Context
A division bench of justices AS Gadkari and Kamal Khata questioned the agency for acting on anonymous complaints and allegations made by accused persons, saying that investigating officers would be afraid to discharge their duties if such complaints were entertained.
Match Outlook
“Such a course would have the effect of demoralising honest officers discharging their official duties and would set a dangerous and wholly undesirable precedent, enabling accused persons to target investigating officers merely because they had performed their statutory functions,” the bench said.
Wankhede, a 2008-batch Indian Revenue Service (IRS) officer, had filed a petition in the high court in 2024, challenging the NCB’s decision to summon him for questioning over anonymous complaints regarding alleged irregularities in two cases he had supervised, including one related to actor Sushant Singh Rajput’s death.
The complaints were based on an anonymous letter that former Maharashtra minister Nawab Malik received in 2021. One of the cases was regarding alleged irregularities in the arrest of a Nigerian drug peddler, and the other pertained to a purported drug case involving UK-based actress Sapna Pabbi, who had worked with Rajput in the 2019 movie Drive.
In his petition, Wankhede alleged that Malik had continuously targeted him during his stint as the NCB zonal director, especially after the arrest of the former minister’s son-in-law, Sameer Khan, for the alleged possession of narcotic substances.
In November 2023, the Union ministry of home affairs had directed the NCB to conduct inquiries into the anonymous letter received by Malik. Between November 2023 and March 2024, the NCB issued 11 notices to Wankhede, prompting him to approach the high court. He argued that the NCB was targeting him and the inquiry against him was an “act of vengeance”.
On Thursday, the high court admitted Wankhede’s petition and barred the NCB from summoning him for questioning until the plea is heard and decided. Observing that repeated proceedings initiated against Wankhede amounted to “sheer harassment”, the bench said that if allegations made by the accused against investigating officers are readily entertained by the agencies, it would “create chaos in the criminal justice administration”.
“If there were any complaints with regard to the investigation or any other aspect, the complaint should have been made at the time of remand, which was admittedly not done in the cases,” the bench said.
During an earlier hearing in April, senior advocate Rajiv Chavan and advocates Faiz Merchant and Faisal Shaikh, representing Wankhede, had argued that the NCB notices did not mention the legal provisions under which they were issued. They also told the court that both complainants were accused persons in two different cases supervised by Wankhede, adding that the NCB’s inquiry was a “sham” and its submissions were “white lies”.
Wankhede gained nationwide prominence in 2021 after leading the investigation into the cruise ship drug case in which Bollywood superstar Shah Rukh Khan’s son, Aryan Khan, was arrested. Aryan was eventually cleared of all charges due to a lack of evidence. Wankhede later faced allegations of corruption and misconduct related to the investigation. He has consistently denied all the allegations.
