Probe against Sameer Wankhede transferred to Delhi: ED tells HC

MUMBAI: The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Tuesday informed the Bombay High Court that it has transferred the probe into a money laundering case against Sameer Wankhede, former Mumbai zone director of the Narcotics Control Bureau, to its Delhi office.

Wankhede, who has moved the high court here seeking to quash the case, should instead move the Delhi High Court, it said.

Wankhede, who approached the Bombay High Court last week, has also sought a temporary stay to the investigation, and protection from “coercive action” (such as arrest) until his petition is decided.

On Tuesday, his lawyer Aabad Ponda argued before a division bench of Justices P D Naik and N R Borkar that the ED’s action of transferring the probe was “malafide”.

This was done only to ensure that Wankhede did not get a hearing on Thursday before the Bombay HC which had last year granted him interim protection from coercive action in a case of corruption and extortion registered by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), the lawyer claimed.

The ED registered a money laundering case against him after taking cognisance of the CBI’s First Information Report (FIR) where he was accused of demanding Rs 25 crore bribe from Bollywood superstar Shah Rukh Khan’s family to spare his son Aryan Khan in an alleged drugs case.

Wankhede, a 2008-batch Indian Revenue Service (IRS) officer of the Customs and Indirect Taxes cadre, in his plea said the ED’s case “smacks of malice and vendetta”.