NCB vigilance probe indicates no extortion bid made to let off Aryan Khan

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 agencys Mumbai unit in the controversial drugsoncruise caseA vigilance probe was ordered by Narcotics Control Bureau NCB DirectorGeneral 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 KhanAryan 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 evidenceSail 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 Dsouza 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 directorSail 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 allegationsSail claimed that on October 3 2021 he saw Gosavi meeting Shah Rukh Khans 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 cashWhile Wankhede has denied any wrongdoing Gosavi is currently lodged in a Pune jail in an alleged fraud case filed by the Maharashtra PoliceSources said the vigilance probe has reportedly found that the allegation of extortion from Aryan Khans 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 personThe 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 DadlaniCCTV 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 conclusionA final report of this vigilance inquiry conducted by NCB deputy director general northern region Gyaneshwar Singh is expected to be submitted soon to DG PradhanThe 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 thereafterTwo days ago a special investigation team SIT that reinvestigated the entire drugsoncruise case and the role of the accused filed a charge sheet before a Mumbai court giving clean chit to Aryan Khan and five others citing lack of sufficient evidence against themIt however charged 14 others in the over 6000 pages prosecution complaint field under various sections of the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act NDPSThis SIT was also constituted by the NCB chief after the cruise raids and the subsequent action by the Mumbai NCB unit which courted controversyThe NCB has said the initial arrests and investigation in the cruise drugs case by the team headed by Wankhede was shoddy and had many glaring lapses and that is why the SIT exonerated the six accused and it laid stress on the touchstone of the principle of proof beyond reasonable doubtThe SIT found that the NCB Mumbai action had many grave irregularities and that they were allegedly just trying to implicate Aryan Khan in this caseFollowing these revelations the Union government also recommend appropriate disciplinary action against Wankhede a 2008batch IRS officer to be undertaken by his cadre controlling authority the Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs CBICSail had told the SIT that he was made to sign blank pages by Gosavi and that he did not see any drugs being seizedPradhan soon after taking over as the NCB DG in July last year had issued strict directives to his officers in the agency that he would want them to undertake professional evidencebased and quality investigations into drugs cases that have national or international ramificationsThe DG has also asked his investigators to ensure that their action is backed by solid evidence so that a strong prosecution could be launched against big narcotics syndicates and cartels He directed them to keep away from small drugs trafficking cases and the best they should do in such instances was to assist the local police or any other law enforcement agency in conducting the probeThis story has 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