The vigilance department of the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) has found irregularities in the case where drugs on cruise ship, in which, Shah Rukh Khan’s son Aryan Khan was arrested along with 19 others. The case was led by former Zonal Head of the Bureau Sameer Wankhede in October last year. Aryan Khan was given clean chit earlier this year. A 3,000-page internal vigilance report was submitted to the NCB director general Satya Narayan Pradhan.
Deputy director general Gyaneshwar Singh, chief vigilance officer, refused to divulge into the details of the irregularities. According to a report in NDTV, he said, “I won’t be able to contents of the report. But I can say it has been submitted to the competent authority. When there is an inquiry report, there are recommendations. But since the action hasn’t been taken on them yet, I won’t be able to comment on that.”
Another senior official from the bureau said that the report recommended taking action against atleast seven officials from the NCB. It further stated that the report was compiled after video statements of Shah Rukh Khan, and his manager Pooja Dadlani, to ascertain the extortion allegations that were made against Sameer Wankhede and his team but found no such evidence. The vigilance department recorded the statement of at least 65 witnesses which also included the statements from NCB officers. As per a report by Mid-Day, an officer said, “Everyone was given fair opportunity to present themselves, and based on evidence, we have found various irregularities.”
According to the initial report earlier this year in Hindustan Times, officials said, “Aryan Khan was never in possession of drugs hence there was no need to take his phone and check his chats; the chats do not suggest Khan was part of an international syndicate; the raid was not video-recorded as mandated by the NCB manual, and the drugs recovered from multiple accused arrested in the case shown as single recovery.”
Aryan Khan was embroiled in a drug case in October last year after the Narcotics Control Bureau conducted a raid on a cruise ship off the Mumbai coast. Aryan was taken into custody on the night of October 2, along with a few others who were on the cruise ship with him. He was kept under judicial custody for 28 days before he was released on bail. In March 2022, the Special Investigation Team (SIT) of the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB), had reportedly found that Aryan Khan was not a part of the larger conspiracy. SIT stated that there was “no evidence that Aryan Khan was part of a larger drugs conspiracy or an international drugs trafficking syndicate”.
In May 2022, the starkid was given clean chit as there was no sufficient evidence against him. NCB had filed a chargesheet where they absolved Aryan of all charges.
