Shah Rukh Khan Extortion Case: The Court Denies Sam D’Souza’s Request For Anticipatory Bail

Shah Rukh Khan Extortion Case: The Court Denies Sam D’Souza’s Request For Anticipatory Bail

Sanville Adrian, also known as Sam D’Souza, was denied anticipatory bail by a special CBI court in Mumbai on Wednesday. The CBI has charged D’Souza with extorting Rs 25 crore from the family of Bollywood actor Shah Rukh Khan after Aryan Khan was implicated in the 2021 Cordelia Cruise case.

“Considering the gravity and seriousness of the offence, for proper investigation, custodial interrogation of the applicant (D’Souza) is necessary, and hence, he is not entitled to anticipatory bail.” Special Judge SM Menjoge stated.

The CBI recently filed a complaint against D’Souza and others, including three Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) officers.

According to D’Souza’s attorney Bharti Kamble, he was “pressed” to claim that he was seeking an unauthorised benefit on behalf of Sameer Wankhede, the former NCB head who is also charged by the CBI.

She added that there was a demand for a bribe and that neither Aryan nor Shah Rukh Khan had filed an official complaint.

However, the CBI said that D’Souza had planned to extort the money with co-accused KP Gosavi, a witness in the cruise drug case, as indicated by Special Public Prosecutor PKB Gaikwad.

The Special Enquiry Team’s (SET) statement about D’Souza was included in the judge’s review of the case diary. The CBI further claimed that the alleged NCB personnel had omitted several suspects’ identities from the narcotics case FIR, among them a man who was said to have provided charas to Arbaaz Merchant. Aryan had brought Arbaaz along for the cruise.

“Gosavi and D’Souza entered into a conspiracy to extort Rs 25 crore from the family of Aryan Khan, the son of Shah Rukh Khan, for not making him an accused. The statement of this applicant is recorded by SET. It would not be proper to disclose the same here,” observed the judge.