Mumbai: Maharashtra Home Minister Dilip Walse Patil on Monday announced that the Mumbai police would probe whether a ‘fake’ case had been lodged by the Narcotics Control Bureau against actor Shah Rukh Khan’s son Aryan in the Cordelia drugs bust case. Walse Patil’s announcement came days after the Bombay high court, in its order granting bail to Aryan Khan, said there was no material evidence of conspiracy against him. Further, the HC had said that there was hardly any positive evidence on record to convince it that all the accused persons with common intention agreed to commit an unlawful act.

Walse Patil told The Free Press Journal, “The high court has clearly observed that there is no material evidence against Aryan Khan. Then it will have to inquire if the NCB had lodged a fake case.” The minister declined to divulge further details but said he had discussed the nature of the probe and the inquiry panel’s mandate with senior officials from the home department.

Walse-Patil’s announcement is important as his party colleague and NCP chief spokesman and Minority Affairs Minister Nawab Malik had reiterated that the Cordelia drugs bust case was fake and had accused the NCB zonal director, Sameer Wankhede, of kidnapping and ransom. Malik had also sought Wankhede’s suspension following the high court order granting bail to Aryan Khan.

The timing of Walse Patil’s announcement is important, given that a four-member special investigation team under the direct supervision of Additional Commissioner of Police (ACP) Dilip Sawant is probing the matter. The SIT team has one officer each from the Azad Maidan and Colaba police stations, along with one officer from the Mumbai Police’s anti-narcotics cell and one officer from the force’s cyber cell. The SIT investigation is currently underway in four separate complaints of bribery against Wankhede by Prabhakar Sail, Sudha Dwivedi, Kanishk Jain and Nitin Deshmukh.

One of the complainants, Prabhakar Sail, is an independent witness of the NCB in the Aryan Khan case. In an affidavit, Sail has alleged that he had overheard another independent witness, K P Gosavi, and one Sam D’Souza, discuss a Rs 25 crore ‘payoff’ to let actor Shah Rukh Khan’s son Aryan Khan go.