Money laundering case: ED tells HC it won't arrest Sameer Wankhede till March 1
Mumbai (PTI): The Enforcement Directorate on Tuesday told the Bombay High Court that it will extend till March 1 its previous statement that it would not arrest Sameer Wankhede, the former zonal director of the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB), in a money laundering case.
A division bench of Justices P D Naik and N R Borkar accepted the statement and posted Wankhede's petition against the case on March 1.
The bench directed the probe agency to produce a copy of the ECIR (complaint) on that day.
The ED registered a money laundering case against Wankhede after taking cognisance of a first information report (FIR) by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) in an alleged Rs 25-crore bribe demand from superstar Shah Rukh Khan's family to spare his son in a drugs case.
Earlier this month, Wankhede filed a petition in the high court seeking to quash the ED's case and, through an interim order, sought protection from any coercive action and a stay on the probe.
The probe agency had last week said it would not arrest Wankhede till February 20 (Tuesday).
The ED's advocate, Sandesh Patil, told the court on Tuesday that Solicitor General Tushar Mehta will appear in the case and sought an adjournment.
"My earlier statement of no arrest or coercive action would stand extended till the time the plea is taken up for hearing," Patil told the court.
The bench accepted the statement and posted the plea for hearing on March 1.
The court also adjourned till March 27 another petition filed by Wankhede last year against the case of extortion and bribery registered against him by the CBI.
In his plea against the money laundering case, the 2008-batch Indian Revenue Service (IRS) officer said the ED's case "smacks of malice and vendetta".
Wankhede claimed while the ECIR was registered last year, summons have been issued now to some NCB officers after he filed a complaint against NCB's deputy director Gyaneshwar Singh last month before a Delhi court seeking action under the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe (Prevention of Atrocities) Act.
He further alleged that Singh and a few powerful people have unleashed agencies, including the CBI, ED and NCB, to fix him in some case.
Wankhede was booked by the CBI in May last year on charges of seeking a Rs 25 crore bribe for not framing Shah Rukh Khan's son Aryan Khan in the drugs-on-cruise case.
Wankhede and others were booked under sections 120-B (criminal conspiracy) and 388 (threat of extortion) of the Indian Penal Code besides provisions under the Prevention of Corruption Act on a complaint from the NCB.
Aryan Khan was arrested in the alleged drug bust case on the Cordelia cruise ship on October 2, 2021.
Later, the NCB filed a chargesheet in the drugs-on-cruise case against 14 accused but gave a clean chit to Aryan.
The much-hyped case took a twist when an 'independent witness' claimed in 2021 that Rs 25 crore was demanded by an NCB official and others to let off Aryan Khan.
The NCB later conducted an internal vigilance probe against Wankhede and others and shared the contents with the CBI leading to the registration of a case against him.
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Two injuries, one DNF, a DQ as India end messy World Relays campaign
Gaborone (Botswana) (PTI): Amoj Jacob and Ragul Kumar got injured during the men's 4x400m and 4x100 races respectively as India ended their World Athletics Relays campaign in disappointment on the second day of competitions here on Sunday.
The Indian camp had high hopes of making the 2027 World Championships in the men's 4x400m relay but the team did not finish (DNF) the race as Jacob suffered cramps and pulled out of the race after taking the baton from the first leg runner Dharamveer Choudhary. Rajesh Ramesh and Vishal TK were to run in the third and fourth legs.
Those teams which could not qualify for the 2027 Beijing World Championships by reaching the final round of each of the six relay events on Saturday were given another chance in the second qualification round on Sunday.
The top two teams in each of the two heats (in all six relay events) booked the Beijing ticket on Sunday.
India will now have to try and qualify for the World Championships through the Top Lists of the World Athletics, which is a long and tedious process.
In the men's 4x100m race, third leg runner Ragul Kumar fell down the track after failing to hand over the baton inside the exchange zone to fourth leg runner Gurindervir Singh, which clearly showed the lack of coordination among the runners.
Harsh Santosh Raut and Animesh Kujur ran the first two legs.
The Indian quartet was disqualified and Kumar was seen being taken away from the Field of Play with the help of the volunteers.
It was a comedy of errors in the case of the women's 4x100m race, which saw the baton being dropped during an exchange between first leg runner Tamanna and second runner Nithya Gandhe, though the Indians finished the race in 53.09 seconds.
Gandhe started running quite a distance, but after realising that the baton was not in her hand, she turned and ran back to pick it up.
The only silver-lining for the Indian contingent was the national record time in the mixed 4x100m relay race, though the quartet of Ragul Kumar, Nithya Gandhe, Animesh Kujur and Sneha SS finished sixth in heat number two with a time of 41.35 seconds, bettering the previous national mark of 42.30 seconds set in March in Chandigarh.
The mixed 4x400m relay quartet of Theerthesh P Shetty, Kumari Saloni, Nihal William and Rashdeep Kaur ended at fifth in heat number one with a time of 3 minutes and 19.40 seconds.
On Saturday, all the five Indian relay teams had failed to make it to the respective final rounds and thus missed out on the 2027 World Championships berths.
