Special court disposes of NCB’s plea to record Gosavi’s statement

The court said that Gosavi is currently in the custody of a court in Pune. “Therefore, applicant is required to approach the concerned court for seeking necessary permission as prayed,” special Judge V V Patil said in his order.

Earlier in the day, special public prosecutor Advaith Sethna submitted to the court that Gosavi’s statement is needed to be recorded by the NCB for its ongoing probe.

“We want to record his statement for our investigation. We will be filing a chargesheet after the completion of our probe. The statements of the panch witnesses will be part of the chargesheet. We want to record his statement under Section 67 of the NDPS Act,” Sethna told the court. He said that if permitted, the officers are ready to visit the Yerawada jail on Tuesday at 12 pm.

“We are seeking directions to be given to the jail superintendent to allow us to examine, interrogate him and for us to record his voluntary statement until such time as required. Three days is sufficient time for us,” Sethna told the court.

The NCB’s application said that Gosavi was a panch witness in the case and his statement was necessary for a transparent probe. The vigilance team of the NCB probing corruption allegations made against its Mumbai zonal director Sameer Wankhede had last week said that it wants to record a statement of Gosavi.

Gosavi is one of the panch witnesses in the Cordelia cruise case including that related to Aryan Khan, son of Bollywood actor Shah Rukh Khan. One of the selfies taken by Gosavi with Aryan had gone viral after the raid on October 2. Another witness has claimed that Gosavi was trying to extort money from Khan’s manager.