Bombay HC slaps notice on Nawab Malik for comments on Sameer Wankhede’s family

In a key development, the Bombay High Court on Tuesday pulled up Nawab Malik for making statements against Narcotics Control Bureau's Mumbai zonal officer Sameer Wankhede’s family despite giving an undertaking to the court. The court asked the Maharashtra minister to submit an affidavit stating the reason why action should not be taken against him for "willfully breaching" the undertaking, and issuing statements with respect to the family. The court further said that if the NCP leader is making statements in his "individual capacity" then he would be summoned.

The development comes after Sameer Wankhede’s father Dnyandev Wankhede on Monday filed a breach of defamation against Nawab Malik in the Bombay High Court. Sources have reported that Wankhede’s father has attached a transcript of three interviews that Malik has given to news channels alleging that he has breached his consent terms after having given an undertaking to the court.

During the last hearing which took place on November 25, Nawab Malik's lawyer gave an undertaking to the Bombay High Court promising that his client will not make statements against the Wankhede family until the next date of hearing i.e December 9. 

Defamation case against Nawab Malik

In his defamation suit, Dnyandev Wankhede had claimed that Nawab Malik started making allegations against his son after his son-in-law Sameer Khan was arrested by the central agency in a drugs case. Besides seeking damages to the tune of Rs 1.25 crore, he had requested the HC to order the deletion of the defamatory material and restrain the NCP leader from making such comments.

So far, apart from the formal undertaking, Justice Madhav Jamdar has also directed Malik to conduct "reasonable verification" of facts before publishing or speaking anything which amounts to defamation of the Wankhede family.

While several personal and professional allegations had been levelled against Sameer Wankhede by Malik, in a deeply personal attack, the NCP leader had claimed that Wankhede's father Dnyandev was actually 'Dnyandev Dawood Wankhede', a Muslim by birth. Malik had alleged that his name had been changed to obtain a caste certificate, using which Sameer became an IRS officer via the 'reserve category'. 

In October, amid the constant slandering by Nawab Malik, the National Commission for Scheduled Castes (NCSC) found that Sameer Wankhede's caste certificates were original, busting the former's claims.