The difficulties of Sameer Wankhede, former director of Mumbai region of NCB, are increasing. The NCB's Special Investigation Team (SET), set up to probe the role of Sameer Wankhede in the controversial drugs case involving Bollywood actor Shah Rukh Khan's son, has found several alleged service rule violations, including foreign travel expenses and purchase of luxury watches. misrepresentation of transactions. SET's findings have been taken on record by the CBI. Notably, the CBI recently registered an FIR against Wankhede, a 2008-batch Indian Revenue Service (IRS) officer, for corruption and alleged violation of rules in the Cordelia Cruz raid.

The NCB raided the Cordelia Cruise off the Mumbai coast on October 2, 2021. During this Shahrukh Khan's son Aryan Khan was arrested. Aryan Khan had to spend almost a month in jail. However, last year the NCB acquitted Aryan Khan in this case. The Special Investigation Team (SIT) of NCB had found that there was no evidence of wrongdoing against Aryan. The SET, in its report submitted to the Central Administrative Tribunal (CAT) last year, found irregularities against 44-year-old Wankhede and his team mainly in two cases, including alleged irregularities in the Cordelia Cruz raid and violation of Central Civil Services (CCS) rules. is included.

However, Sameer Wankhede has denied these allegations and has moved CAT and Bombay High Court to quash the CBI FIR against him. Wankhede says that SET chief Dnyaneshwar Singh (Deputy Director General of NCB) is himself being probed into his conduct, as he was his reporting boss during the raids. At the same time, Gyaneshwar Singh, a 1999 batch IPS officer of Himachal Pradesh cadre, told CAT that he was not biased in his investigation against Wankhede, as the investigation by the NCB headquarters was based on an affidavit filed by Prabhakar Sail, a deceased witness in the case. was started.

The SET report states that Wankhede took six private foreign trips with family to UK, Ireland, Portugal, South Africa and Maldives over a period of about five years from 2017-21 and spent Rs 8.75 lakh on 55 days of foreign travel. , which may just be equal to the cost of air travel.

At the same time, the Bombay High Court on Friday directed the CBI not to take any coercive action like arrest against former NCB Zonal Director Sameer Wankhede in the Cordelia Cruz drugs case. IRS officer Wankhede has moved the court seeking quashing of the FIR registered against him by the CBI.

A vacation bench of the high court passed the order after recording Wankhede's affidavit that he would be present at the CBI office in Mumbai's BKC area at 11 am on May 20. Also, the High Court directed that the CBI will not take any coercive action against Wankhede till May 22.