Sameer Wankhede denies Rs 25 crore bribe claim for not framing Aryan Khan in drug case

As the long-running cruise drugs case resurfaces, Sameer Wankhede rejects bribery claims in court, even as judges question the evidence and the probe drags on without a chargesheet.

In a case that refuses to fade, former NCB officer Sameer Wankhede has told the Bombay High Court that he neither demanded nor accepted any bribe from actor Shah Rukh Khan, insisting someone else was responsible.

Appearing before the court on Monday, Wankhede said the allegations linking him to a Rs 25 crore bribe demand in the Aryan Khan case were misplaced.

“It was never him who had demanded or taken any bribe and it was someone else,” his counsel Aabad Ponda argued, adding that even the CBI’s case did not directly attribute the alleged payment to Wankhede.

The bench of Chief Justice Shree Chandrashekhar and Justice Suman Shyam, however, made it clear that the absence of a chargesheet was not central to the matter.

“The issue is not whether a chargesheet is filed or not but whether there is material in the case,” the bench said, asking the defence to show why the FIR should be quashed.

Wankhede had moved the High Court in 2023 seeking to quash the CBI FIR registered against him. The matter remains under investigation, with no chargesheet filed so far.