New Delhi: Pulling up the Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs (CBIC) for acting in a mala fide manner and abusing the process of law, the Central Administrative Tribunal (CAT) Monday set aside the disciplinary charges framed against the Indian Revenue Service officer Sameer Wankhede, while restraining tax authorities from taking any further action against him.
As an additional commissioner in the revenue department under the finance ministry, Wankhede came under scrutiny after the Cordelia cruise drug, during which he arrested Shahrukh Khan’s son Aryan Khan and 19 others, on charges of possession of drugs.
The case before the CAT stems from an in-house inquiry against Wankhede after the raid. A Special Enquiry Team (SET) led by the then-deputy director-general of CBIC had pointed at procedural lapses and “substantial” irregularities in how Wankhede handled the raid.
On 18 January, a bench of CAT Chairman Justice Ranjit More, along with CAT member Justice Rajinder Kashyap, in a 79-page ruling, found the disciplinary charge memorandum issued to Wankhede on 18 August 2025—a formal document similar to a charge sheet in a non-criminal case with details of misconduct, negligence, or financial discrepancies—void from the very beginning and ruled that it must be quashed.
It was done “not for any legitimate purpose of service discipline, but purely as a retaliatory measure in complete violation of Articles 14 and 16 of the Constitution of India—the fundamental right to equality and non-discrimination—as well as the principles of natural justice”, the CAT held.
The CAT also said, “Such conduct of the respondents is not only demonstrative of malice in law, but also constitutes abuse of process, being actuated by personal vendetta and designed to harass and prejudice the applicant.”
Significantly, the CAT also noted a gross abuse of power in May 2023, when the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) filed a frivolous case against Wankhede, without proper sanction, followed by a raid at Wankhede’s residence, where nothing incriminating was found. The raid was conducted a little over a year after the Cordelia cruise drug bust.
Pointing out other gaps, the tribunal said that it is the well-settled law that a charge memorandum must contain all relevant details, such as documents and witnesses relied upon, so that the officer could effectively defend himself.
The CAT also clarified that it was restraining itself from imposing costs on the CBIC and the revenue department, hoping that they would mend their way and establish a legal, administrative mechanism. “The impugned charge memorandum dated 18.08.2025..is quashed and set aside with all consequential benefits in accordance with law and rules on the subject,” said its 19 January ruling.
With this, the bench noted that the conduct of the Centre, “in converting an interdicted preliminary enquiry into a full-fledged departmental proceeding despite subsisting interim protection, reflects gross malafides, vindictiveness and a colourable exercise of power”. It was done to tarnish the applicant’s reputation and image in the eyes of his peers and the public—to victimise him—the bench noted.
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The case against Wankhede
The case before the CAT arose when Wankhede challenged the charge memorandum issued against him by the CBIC. The move against him had come despite a CAT order restraining the department from taking coercive action.
Presenting a list of 26 accolades he received while serving different government departments over the last 18 years, Wankhede told the CAT that he had been the zonal director of Mumbai’s Narcotics Control Bureau, and the political bosses of the drug mafia were targeting him unfairly since he had busted drug rackets and gangs in Maharashtra and Goa. He pointed to his role in the Sushant Singh Rajput and Aryan Khan cases.
Wankhede told the CAT that former Nationalist Congress Party minister Nawab Malik started defaming him with “false, cheap and baseless allegations” that involved his aged father, sister, and late mother, but Mumbai Police had since found the allegations baseless. Later, Wankhede lodged a complaint against Malik at the National Commission for Scheduled Caste. Wankhede had approached the Bombay HC against Malik over caste-based remarks in 2024, as well.
On the in-house inquiry against him, Wankhede said that the DDG had already been leading an investigation against him. Saying that the DDG could not have been “a judge in his own cause”, Wankhede even challenged the SET report in Delhi HC, arguing that there was a violation of natural justice in his case. But the Delhi HC had refused to quash it.
Taking note that the CBI also registered a case against Wankhede for a “frivolous offence”, relying on the same SET report, which had been challenged, the CAT noted that even in the CBI case, there was no sanction a competent authority, as the process required. Instead, soon after, a raid was carried out at Wankhede’s residence to cause him humiliation, in which nothing incriminating was found, the CAT noted.
Aggrieved and feeling victimised, Wankhede approached the Delhi High Court in 2023, but withdrew his petition after the CBI lawyer told the court that he should have approached the Bombay HC—not the Delhi HC—since the former was the appropriate forum in his case. Later, Wankhede made his way to the Bombay HC, which, in May 2023, granted him interim protection from coercive action after examining the credibility of the material against him. The grant of interim relief was indicative of the fact that the Bombay High Court found substance in the grievances raised by Wankhede, noted the CAT.
What the bench ruled
Hearing Wankhede’s challenge to the charge memorandum, the CAT highlighted that the Supreme Court in the 2012 case of Prabhash Chandra Mirdha had held that a charge sheet cannot be challenged in a written petition since it did not give rise to any cause of action—unless the authority issued it—but also it is not competent to initiate departmental proceedings in the first place.
Pointing to the well-settled legal principle that interference at the stage of issuing a charge sheet could only be permissible in exceptional circumstances, the CAT said that only when there was a clear lack of jurisdiction or patent illegality could the charge sheet be interfered with. It also reiterated that judicial review at the stage of the charge sheet— whenever the foundational legal defects went to the root of the matter— was justified.
Staying further actions against Wankhede, the CAT noted that the CBIC and revenue department acted in gross disregard and resorted to issuing the charge memorandum against him under Rule 14 of the CCS Rules, 1965.
“Whenever the disciplinary authority is of the opinion that there are grounds for inquiring into the truth of any imputation of misconduct or misbehaviour against a Government servant, it may itself inquire into, or appoint under this rule or under the provisions of the Public Servants (Inquiries) Act, 1850, as the case may be,” Rule 14 reads.
Such an act on the part of the respondents is not only a blatant act of judicial indiscipline but also a deliberate attempt to render ineffective the orders of the tribunal, the CAT bench noted. “The action of the respondents unmistakably reveals that they are hell-bent upon punishing the applicant by any means whatsoever, even if it requires them to trample upon the majesty of law and openly defy authorities (on the tribunal).”
(Edited by Madhurita Goswami)
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