New investigating officer Sanjay Kumar Singh on Saturday said that Sameer Wankhede's assistance will be taken in all six cases as he is the director of the Mumbai unit.
This came after a day when a special investigation team of Delhi took over 6 cases including the Aryan Khan case from the Mumbai zone unit.
Earlier, it was reported that Sameer Wankhede has been removed from these 6 cases.
The team headed by the deputy director-general of the Narcotics Control Bureau, Sanjay Kumar Singh, comprising officials from NCB headquarters in Delhi has already reached Mumbai on Saturday. The decision to shift six cases to this special team was an administrative decision, taken at a time when Sameer Wankhede is facing an internal vigilance probe on extortion charges and other irregularities, leveled against him Maharashtra minister Nawab Malik, said reports.
Sanjay Kumar Singh said in Mumbai, "We've taken over a group of six cases. He (Sameer Wankhede) is the zonal director of Mumbai, we'll definitely take his assistance in the investigation."
In a statement issued on Friday, the central agency clarified that the transfer of the case has been precipitated because of the "national and international ramifications" the cases have. "No officer or officers have been removed from their present roles and they will continue to assist the operations branch investigation as required until any specific orders are issued to the contrary," it said.
According to a report from the Hindustan Times, the timing of the transfer of these crucial cases raises the question as to whether the central agency is conveying any message to embattled Sameer Wankhede. As the decision was announced on Friday, Wankhede said, "I've not been removed from the investigation. It was my writ petition in court that the matter should be probed by a central agency. So Aryan case and Sameer Khan case are being probed by Delhi NCB's SIT. It's coordination between NCB teams of Delhi and Mumbai."
An NCB official expressed in front of news agency ANI, "Sameer Wankhede is a deputy inspector general-rank officer of the central agency and is too senior to become an investigating officer of any case. He/She just supervises any investigation of the zone. So it's baseless to say that Sameer Wankhede will cease to investigate these six cases. Actually, he was never investigating these cases."
