MUMBAI, March 25 -- The Bombay High Court on Tuesday refused to rely on the arrest memo of the 2021 Cordelia cruise drugs bust and purported WhatsApp chats between Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) officials, while hearing a plea filed by former Mumbai zonal director of the agency, Sameer Wankhede, to quash the Rs.25-crore extortion case against him and some others. Flagging delays in the challenges raised by Wankhede, a division bench of Chief Justice Shree Chandrashekhar and Justice Suman Shyam said that such disputed material cannot be examined at this stage. Acting on a specific tip-off, a team of NCB officials, headed by Wankhede, had on October 2, 2021, searched certain passengers scheduled to take the Cordelia cruise ship from Mumbai to Goa, and their rooms. During the search, the agency claimed to have seized multiple drugs and intercepted 14 persons. After hours of interrogation, they placed 23-year-old Aryan Khan, son of actor Shah Rukh Khan, and some others under arrest. The agency claimed it had found 5 grams of charas in the possession of Aryan's friend Arbaaz Merchant, and that he and Aryan had admitted that they were both going to consume the contraband on the cruise. Later, in May 2024, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) booked Wankhede and two other NCB officials and some private individuals for allegedly trying to extort Rs.25 crore from Shah Rukh Khan in lieu of allowing Aryan Khan off the hook in the drugs bust case. Counsel for Wankhede, senior advocate Abad Ponda, argued that the extortion charge cannot be invoked as it covers the act only when it is done by threatening the person with accusations of serious offences punishable with up to 10 years or more. In Wankhede's case, Ponda said, the arrest memo reflected an offence under section 27 of the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act, 1985, which carries a maximum punishment of a year's imprisonment and therefore falls short of the legal threshold required to invoke the serious charge of extortion. The senior advocate also sought the court's permission to place on record WhatsApp chats purportedly exchanged between Wankhede and his superiors in the NCB in Delhi. The chats purportedly included queries on the progress of the case and sought clarification on police custody and arrest. He argued that these would highlight that he made no attempt to frame anyone. The bench, however, refused to rely on additional documents at the stage of quashing of the FIR, observing that such matters are open to interpretation, adding that such disputed facts cannot form the basis of quashing of proceedings at the threshold. The court also raised concern over delays in adjudicating such pleas, stating that repeated filings of additional affidavits hinders progress in hearings. "Matters cannot remain pending for years. We want to hear the matter, but we get objections from the bar. You keep filing affidavits and you raise a ground on that basis. Why are the matters pending? This is not sending a good signal to society, and people are suffering. Thousands are suffering. They are in the queue," the court said....