'Recipe to chaos': Bombay HC frowns over NCB's inquiry against Sameer Wankhede

Calling it a recipe to chaos in the criminal justice administration, the Bombay High Court on Thursday questioned the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) for proceeding against its own investigating officer Sameer Wankhede merely on the basis of allegations of an accused and anonymous complaints.

A division bench comprising Justice A.S. Gadkari and Justice Kamal Khata expressed concern over the manner in which the NCB initiated multiple inquiries against its former Zonal Director involved in the Aryan Khan case of 2021, noting that such a course of action would demoralise honest officers.

The Court said that if accused are permitted to make allegations against investigating officers and such allegations are readily acted upon by the department, it would create chaos in the criminal justice administration, a lawyer from Wankhede's team said.

The bench remarked that such a course of action would set a dangerous and undesirable precedent, enabling accused persons to target investigating officers merely because they had performed their statutory functions.

Justice Gadkari and Justice Khata were hearing a petition that has sought the quashing of the preliminary enquiry notices issued against Wankhede on the basis of anonymous complaints.

During the hearing, the High Court admitted the writ petition for final hearing and granted interim relief in favour of Wankhede, thereby, protecting him pending final adjudication of the petition.

Wankhede is not new to controversies. On October 2, 2021, he led a search and seizure operation in a cruise ship operated by Cordelia Cruises, during which superstar Shah Rukh Khan's son Aryan Khan was arrested along with 19 other individuals for offences under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act, 1985.

During the hearing in the High Court on Thursday, the Bench also posed a question to the NCB as to whether the accused had made allegations against Wankhede at the time of his initial arrest or during the course of investigation.

The Court asked why such allegations against the officer surfaced only subsequently and sought an explanation as to why these were entertained at a much later stage.

Wankhede has consistently maintained that the proceedings initiated against him are arbitrary, malafide, legally unsustainable and constitute an abuse of the administrative process, a lawyer said.