The NCB is known to haven’t discovered any proof to corroborate the allegation of a bid to extort cash from Bollywood famous person Shah Rukh Khan to let off his son Aryan Khan following his apprehension by the company’s Mumbai unit within the controversial drugs-on-cruise case.
A vigilance probe was ordered by Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) Director General S N Pradhan instantly after Prabhakar Sail, a witness, claimed in an affidavit and in subsequent interactions with the media that Rs 25 crore was allegedly demanded to let off Aryan Khan.
Aryan Khan, who was nabbed through the Cordelia cruise raids on October 2 final 12 months and spent 22 days in jail, was given clear chit by the company final week as a consequence of “lack of sufficient evidence”.
Sail, now deceased, had alleged that he overheard Okay P Gosavi, his employer and likewise a witness within the case, talking over cellphone with an individual, named Sam D’souza, a few deal to lastly settle the matter at Rs 18 crore and out of this, Rs 8 crore needed to be paid to Sameer Wankhede, the then Mumbai Narcotics Control Bureau zonal director.
Sail, 40, died in April and the police stated the reason for his dying was coronary heart assault. The company had referred to as him a hostile witness after he made the allegations.
Sail claimed that on October 3, 2021 he noticed Gosavi assembly Shah Rukh Khan’s supervisor Pooja Dadlani together with Sam and that they’d a brief assembly in her blue Mercedes automobile parked within the Lower Parel space of Mumbai. He said in his affidavit that he collected two baggage which he later discovered had Rs 38 lakh in money.
While Wankhede has denied any wrongdoing, Gosavi is presently lodged in a Pune jail in an alleged fraud case filed by the Maharashtra Police.
Sources stated the vigilance probe has reportedly discovered that the allegation of extortion from Aryan Khan’s household weren’t true as there had been no bodily or technical proof corroborating the allegation and people named by Sail within the alleged conspiracy gave statements denying any such menace or bribe demand being made by the investigators or another linked particular person.
The vigilance inquiry group is known to have questioned and recorded the statements of “all the stakeholders”, together with Sail and officers of the NCB Mumbai zonal unit who undertook the motion equivalent to Wankhede, investigating officers V V Singh and Ashish Ranjan Prasad, Shah Rukh Khan and Dadlani.
CCTV footage of areas equivalent to Lower Parel, Mantralaya (Maharashtra state secretariat), Tardeo Road, locations round Trident Hotel and Vashi the place Sail alleged “cash” exchanged arms has additionally been gathered by the company whereas reaching the conclusion.
A remaining report of this vigilance inquiry, carried out by NCB deputy director common (northern area) Gyaneshwar Singh, is anticipated to be submitted quickly to DG Pradhan.
The inquiry can also be understood to have discovered “glaring procedural lapses” within the appointment of sure witnesses and different procedural shortcomings whereas conducting the raid on the worldwide cruise terminal in Mumbai and thereafter.
Two days in the past, a particular investigation group (SIT) that re-investigated your complete drugs-on-cruise case and the position of the accused, filed a cost sheet earlier than a Mumbai court docket giving clear chit to Aryan Khan and 5 others citing lack of enough proof in opposition to them.
It, nevertheless, charged 14 others within the over 6,000 pages prosecution grievance discipline below numerous sections of the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act (NDPS).
This SIT was additionally constituted by the NCB chief after the cruise raids and the following motion by the Mumbai NCB unit which courted controversy.
The NCB has stated the preliminary arrests and investigation within the cruise medicine case by the group headed by Wankhede was shoddy and had many obtrusive lapses and that’s the reason the SIT exonerated the six accused and it laid stress on the “touchstone of the principle of proof beyond reasonable doubt.” The SIT discovered that the NCB Mumbai motion had many “grave irregularities” and that they have been allegedly simply attempting to “implicate” Aryan Khan on this case.
Following these revelations, the Union authorities additionally suggest acceptable disciplinary motion in opposition to Wankhede, a 2008-batch IRS officer, to be undertaken by his cadre controlling authority, the Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs (CBIC).
Sail had advised the SIT that he was made to signal clean pages by Gosavi and that he didn’t see any medicine being seized.
Pradhan, quickly after taking on because the NCB DG in July final 12 months, had issued strict directives to his officers within the company that he would need them to undertake skilled, evidence-based and high quality investigations into medicine instances which have nationwide or worldwide ramifications.
The DG has additionally requested his investigators to make sure that their motion is backed by strong proof so {that a} robust prosecution may very well be launched in opposition to large narcotics syndicates and cartels. He directed them to avoid small medicine trafficking instances and the most effective they need to do in such situations was to help the native police or another regulation enforcement company in conducting the probe.
Source: www.financialexpress.com”