Sameer Wankhede questions forgery case, cancellation of bar licence in high court

Sameer Wankhede, former zonal director of the Narcotics Control Bureau in Mumbai, has approached the Bombay High Court challenging a case registered against him for allegedly falsifying his age to obtain a liquor licence, and also questioned the licence’s cancellation by the Maharashtra government.

As per the case filed by an excise department official, Wankhede had allegedly submitted a false affidavit claiming to be an adult while applying in February 1997 for a licence to sell liquor. The exercise department later found out, according to the complaint, he had not been 18 then as per his birth certificate. Though the case was registered on Saturday evening, NCP leader and minister Nawab Malik had earlier claimed that Wankhede owned a bar called Hotel Sadguru in Navi Mumbai and that he had fraudulently got a bar licence at the age of 17. Thane Collector Rajesh Narvekar recently cancelled the licence for the bar under the Bombay Prohibition Act.

On Monday, Wankhede filed a petition seeking to quash the case, registered at Kopari in Thane on charges of giving false information under oath, cheating and forgery, among others, of the Indian Penal Code. He described the charges as “arbitrary” and “motivated”. In a separate plea, he urged the court to revoke the cancellation of his liquor licence.

Wankhede first hit the headlines after he, as the NCB director, raided a cruise ship last year and arrested actor Shah Rukh Khan’s son Aryan Khan and others on charges related to narcotic drugs. Amid Malik’s allegations of misconduct and corruption, the Indian Revenue Service officer was last month sent back to his parent organisation, the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence.