Birth certificate is from BMC record: Nawab Malik to high court in defamation suit

The Bombay high court (HC) on Friday reserved its order on a limited plea by Dnyandev Wankhede, who sought an injunction against Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) leader Nawab Malik from making defamatory posts or comments against him or his family on any form of media.

The Bombay high court (HC) on Friday reserved its order on a limited plea by Dnyandev Wankhede, who sought an injunction against Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) leader Nawab Malik from making defamatory posts or comments against him or his family on any form of media.

Sameer Wankhede filed a defamation suit in high court seeking damages of ₹1.25 crore against Nawab Malik last week. (Vijay Bate)

Wankhede filed a defamation suit seeking damages of ₹1.25 crore against Malik last week. He claimed that Malik’s statements made on social media publishing platform, and in various press conferences, “caused harm to him and his family”, which includes son Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) zonal director Sameer Wankhede.

Wankhede’s lawyer Arshad Shaikh told the HC that the documents posted by Malik were not public documents, and Malik had violated their right to privacy by posting them in the public domain without duly verifying them.

However, Malik’s advocate Atul Damle said that the injunction could only be limited to the allegations made against Dnyandev and not to his family members, who could approach the court for remedy if they so wished. He added that most documents referred to by Malik were either from the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) records or from the social media accounts of members of the Wankhede family itself, reasonable verification was done before posting them.

“Verification is of some importance. The verification of an MLA has to be of a different level,” the single-judge bench of justice Madhav Jamdar observed. The court concluded hearing and reserved it for orders.

On October 25, Malik tweeted a copy of a birth certificate, purported to be Sameer Wankhede’s, which showed his father’s name as “Dawood K Wankhede” with an asterix mark that pointed to a name scribbled on the side of the certificate, which read “Dnyandev Kachruji Wankhede”. Malik further alleged that Sameer had forged a caste certificate to get a position in the Indian Revenue Service and that his family is Muslim.

Both father and son have denied these allegations.

Shaikh quoted an apex court order that stated that no one could publish anything pertaining to marriage or divorce without the consent of the concerned person whether it is truth or otherwise. “If he does so he will be violating the right to privacy,” Shaikh said.

Shaikh also said that Malik’s allegations of extortion by Sameer Wankhede tarnished the image of the family and thus Malik and his party members should be restrained from posting or commenting on anything pertaining to them on any media.

Wankhede’s lawyer argued that Malik’s claims were baseless as all official documents of his son and family members identified him (Dnyandev) as a Hindu who belonged to the Mahar community.

The court had asked Shaikh in a previous hearing to file an affidavit to show how Malik’s posts caused harm to him. Shaikh submitted that the affidavit filed by Wankhede consisted of 28 documents which proved that his name was Dnyandev and not ‘Dawood’ as claimed by Malik.

The documents included caste certificate, passport, statement of marks, degree certificate and police service records as well. Shaikh submitted that the documents of Sameer’s mother and sister also showed his father’s name as Dnyandev. Even Sameer’s school leaving certificate showed his father’s name as Dnyandev.

The court had also asked Malik to file an affidavit stating that he had verified the documents and material pertaining to Sameer Wankhede posted on social media. Malik’s affidavit stated that he had reasonably verified the documents before posting them.