By PTI
MUMBAI: The Bombay High Court on Friday reserved its order on interim relief sought in a defamation suit filed by NCB zonal director Sameer Wankhede’s father against Maharashtra minister Nawab Malik.
Dnyandev, Sameer Wankhede’s father, has sought damages of Rs 1.25 crore from the NCP leader.
He has also sought an order restraining Malik from making any false or incorrect statements against the Wankhede family during the pendency of the suit.
Justice Madhav Jamdar had in the previous hearing given the petitioner time till Friday to file an additional affidavit to point out how Malik’s tweets and the documents published by him were false and baseless.
The Bench had also directed Malik to file an affidavit averring that he had verified the documents before posting them on social media.
Wankhede’s father filed an affidavit listing out 28 documents to establish that his name was ‘Dnyandev’ and not ‘Dawood’ as alleged by the NCP leader.
The minister, on the other hand, stated in an affidavit that he had “reasonably verified” the documents before posting.
The judge noted that a purported birth certificate of Sameer Wankhede which Malik had produced apparently has “interpolation”, which would mean that the minister had not taken due care while relying on it.
Advocate Arshad Shaikh, appearing for Wankhede, argued that Malik was targeting Sameer Wankhede because the minister’s son-in-law had been arrested by the Narcotics Control Bureau and could not get bail for eight months.
Malik had alleged that Dnyandev Wankhede had converted to Islam.
Sameer, his son, however, got government job in the quota for the Scheduled Castes, a benefit which a Muslim person can not get, the minister had claimed.
Sameer Wankhede had refuted the allegation and stated that he and his family were Hindu.
