Mumbai : NCB Zonal Director Sameer Wankhede on Thursday approached to the Bombay High Court seeking transfer of his case of probe against NCB officers to CBI. The Maharashtra government told the Bombay High Court on Thursday that it will not arrest NCB’s zonal director Sameer Wankhede without giving him a prior notice of three working days, in connection with the allegations of extortion and corruption levelled against him.
Wankhede has sought interim protection from arrest. He has also sought direction from the HC that all FIRs filed or proposed to be filed against him for extortion or corruption be investigated by the NIA or CBI and not the Maharashtra government.
The Public Prosecutor representing the Maharashtra government told a division bench of Justice Nitin M Jamdar and Justice Sarang V Kotwal that a three working day notice will be issued first before arresting Sameer Wankhede. He will have three days time. The court said that this statement made by the Public prosecutor will suffice for this petition and disposed of the same. “Needless to state we have not commented on merits of case,” the high court said.
Wankhede’s lawyer alleged that, he has realised “design in the posts against him” and did not take names consciously to keep the majesty of law. “There is a vigilance probe ordered against me and the state is going beyond its duty despite I being a central government officer probing the case. I will cooperate with the NCB, but now the state has formed an SIT. I am personally attacked by the state and my apprehension is that they will arrest me any day and therefore, interim protection is needed.”
Sameer Wankhede is in a great political storm now. There are extortion charges on him in a high-profile drug case, in which Aryan Khan has been Arrested. He is also facing NCB Vigilance probe.
The Narcotics Control Bureau’s five-member team interrogated NCB’s Zonal Director Sameer Wankhede in the connection with allegations made by Prabhakar Sail one of the witnesses in Cruise Drug Bust Case on Wednesday. The Vigilance team questioned him for four and a half hours.
The team also made it clear that Wankhede would continue to be associated with the case until something substantial is found against him.
Deputy Director General of the NCB Gyaneshwar Singh said, “We requested the Mumbai NCB office to get the notices served to key witnesses in the case, KP Gosavi and Prabhakar Sail, to join the enquiry. But they could not be contacted through given telephone numbers or the addresses as per our record.”
Sings also said that they had sent a notice to them but one’s house was locked and the other’s address was not verified. He added that efforts were made to contact the lawyer of one of the persons and that they have tried their best to contact them.
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