In a setback to Zonal Director of Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) Sameer Wankhede, the Bombay High Court on Monday refused to restrain Maharashtra Minister Nawab Malik from making statements or publishing any material on public domain against Wankhede and his family members, and said the Minister had not acted with malice by raising some pertinent issues against the NCB official.
Declining to grant an interim relief in a `1.25 crore defamation suit filed by Sameer Wankhede’s father Dnyandev Wankhede, Justice Madhav Jamdar of the High Court noted, “Although plaintiff (Sr Wankhede) has right to privacy, the defendant has right to freedom of speech and expression, there has to be balancing of fundamental rights”.
Alluding to issues being raised by the Minister against the NCB official at Press conferences and on social media, the judge said Malik had raised pertinent issues against Wankhede and it could not be said he acted with malice.
The judge, however, observed that Malik should verify the documents against Wankhede before putting them on public domain.
In a suit filed in the HC, Sr Wankhede had sought a temporary injunction restraining Malik from making any statements in the future about his son Sameer Wankhede.
Sr Wankhede had moved the court after Malik shared Sameer’s purported birth certificate on his twitter handle which allegedly stated that the latter’s father was a Muslim.
The petitioner had alleged that Malik had unleashed a “tirade” against his son after the NCB arrested his son-in-law Sameer Khan under NDPS in January this year.
The petitioner among other things urged the High Court to declare the statements made by Malik are “tortuous and defamatory in nature”, to pass permanent injection order restraining Malik from publishing or making statements in any kind of media, including his social media accounts and to delete any statements, press releases, tweets released by Malik.
In response, Malik had on November 18 filed a detailed affidavit, challenging the maintainability of Sr Wankhede’s suit. Among other things, Malik - through his lawyer Arshad Shaikh -- had submitted 28 documents including caste certificate of 1974, passport and SLCs to show that the name of Wankhede’s father was ‘Dnyandev’ and he belongs to the Mahar community.
At the previous hearing, the High Court had taken on record all the documents submitted by Malik, including the copy of the latter’s School Leaving Certificate (SLC) -- which mentions that he was a Muslim and not Hindu Dalit as Sameer Wankhede has along been claiming.
In his affidavit, Malik had told the High Court that the SLCs showed that Wankhede’s name as Sameer Dawood Wankhede and his religion as Muslim, the letter by the health officer of the BMC’s E-Ward had Wankhede’s stated that in 1979 his father’s name was Dawood K Wankhede and it was only in 1993 that the sub-registrar corrected his name.
In his affidavit filed before the High Court, Malik said that going by the BMC letter and documents, “It is clear that the name of Wankhede has been changed from Dawood K Wankhede to Dnyandev Kachruji Wankhede. However, there is no change in respect of religion and till date it is shown as Muslim.”
On his part, Wankende’s father filed his own set of documents to disapprove Malik’s allegations. The documents that he produced before the court were digitised birth certificate issued by BMC and a caste certificate.
After hearing the petitions on behalf of Malik by senior Advocate Atul Damle asked Advocate Arshad Shaikh for Wankende to his say.
U Justice Jamdar took the documents on record and asked both the parties not to submit more documents. The judge said he would pronounce his order on Sr Wankhede’s plea on November 22.