NCB vigilance probe indicates no extortion bid made to let off Aryan Khan
New Delhi: The NCB is understood to have not found any evidence to corroborate the allegation of a bid to extort money from Bollywood superstar Shah Rukh Khan to let off his son Aryan Khan following his apprehension by the agency's Mumbai unit in the controversial drugs-on-cruise case.
A vigilance probe was ordered by Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) Director General S N Pradhan immediately 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 during the Cordelia cruise raids on October 2 last year and spent 22 days
in jail, was given clean chit by the agency last week due to "lack of sufficient evidence".
Sail, now deceased, had alleged that he overheard K P Gosavi, his employer and also a witness in the case, speaking over phone with a person, named Sam D'souza, about a deal to finally settle the matter at Rs 18 crore and out of this, Rs 8 crore had to be paid to Sameer Wankhede, the then Mumbai Narcotics Control Bureau zonal director.
Sail, 40, died in April and the police said the cause of his death was heart attack. The agency had called him a hostile witness after he made the allegations.
Sail claimed that on October 3, 2021 he saw Gosavi meeting Shah Rukh Khan's manager Pooja Dadlani along with Sam and that they had a short meeting in her blue Mercedes car parked in the Lower Parel area of Mumbai. He stated in his affidavit that he collected two bags which he later found had Rs 38 lakh in cash.
While Wankhede has denied any wrongdoing, Gosavi is currently lodged in a Pune jail in an alleged fraud case filed by the Maharashtra Police.
Sources said the vigilance probe has reportedly found that the allegation of extortion from Aryan Khan's family were not true as there had been no physical or technical evidence corroborating the allegation and those named by Sail in the alleged conspiracy gave statements denying any such threat or bribe demand being made by the investigators or any other linked person.
The vigilance inquiry team is understood to have questioned and recorded the statements of "all the stakeholders", including Sail and officials of the NCB Mumbai zonal unit who undertook the action such as Wankhede, investigating officers V V Singh and Ashish Ranjan Prasad, Shah Rukh Khan and Dadlani.
CCTV footage of areas such as Lower Parel, Mantralaya (Maharashtra state secretariat), Tardeo Road, places around Trident Hotel and Vashi where Sail alleged "cash" exchanged hands has also been gathered by the agency while reaching the conclusion.
A final report of this vigilance inquiry, conducted by NCB deputy director general (northern region) Gyaneshwar Singh, is expected to be submitted soon to DG Pradhan.
The inquiry is also understood to have found "glaring procedural lapses" in the appointment of certain witnesses and other procedural shortcomings while conducting the raid at the international cruise terminal in Mumbai and thereafter.
