Sameer Wankhede transferred to Directorate General of Taxpayer Services

Days after the Narcotics Control Bureau ( NCB) recommended action against IRS officer Sameer Wankhede for his ‘shoddy investigation’ in the Aryan Khan-drug on cruise case, the Central Board on Indirect Taxes and Custom (CBIC) transferred him to Directorate General of Taxpayer Services or DGTS.

Wankhede who was presently attached with DGARM, Mumbai was transferred on May 30 with immediately effect. DGTS is considered to be a side posting, sources said.

Wankhede wasn’t immediately available for comment.

Last week the NCB did not name Aryan Khan in its chargesheet in a drug case in which the elder son of actor Shah Rukh Khan spent 26 days in jail last year, citing lack of sufficient evidence.

A department enquiry found that the investigation officer in the case was “motivated to somehow implicate Khan in the case”, said a person privy to the findings of a special NCB team that was set up to examine the arrest of Khan.

The union government on Friday ordered the Customs and Excise Department to take appropriate action against Wankhede, an Indian Revenue Services officer and NCB’s former Mumbai zonal director who had arrested Khan in October after a raid on a cruise liner bound for Goa from Mumbai.

On Friday, the NCB filed its chargesheet in a special Mumbai court, naming 14 of the 20 people who were accused in the case.

No physical or circumstantial evidence was not found against the five, including Khan, who were excluded from the chargesheet, NCB director general SN Pradhan said. Khan was also not a part of any international drug cartel, nor was there any conspiracy, he told journalists in New Delhi.