Mumbai: Sameer Wankhede, former zonal director of Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB), told the Bombay High Court on Monday that he never demanded bribe from superstar Shah Rukh Khan to spare his son Aryan Khan in the cruise drugs case.
Sameer’s lawyer Aabad Ponda told the court that the IRS officer has filed a plea to cancel the FIR registered against him by the CBI in May 2023 over corruption and bribery charges, PTI reported.
Arguing before a bench led by Chief Justice Shree Chandrashekhar and Justice Suman Shyam, the lawyer said that Wankhede never demanded or accepted any bribe from Shah Rukh.
He also told the high court that the CBI has no evidence to prove Wankhede asked for or received a bribe.
The Enforcement Directorate (ED) registered a money-laundering case against the former NCB officer in 2024.
He was accused of demanding a Rs 25-crore bribe from SRK to not frame his son Aryan in the October 2021 drug case.
According to the FIR filed by CBI on May 11, 2023, Wankhede and others accused including former NCB officer Vishwa Vijay Singh, intelligence officer Ashish Ranjan, and two private individuals, allegedly made this demand. The amount was later apparently reduced to Rs 18 crore.
Aryan was arrested on October 3, 2021, a day after the raid on a cruise ship in Mumbai.
However, a Special Investigation Team (SIT) later gave him a clean chit on May 27, 2022, stating that he was not part of any drug racket.
