No injunction against Nawab Malik: Bombay HC

Bombay HC refused to grant a blanket injunction restraining Nawab Malik from posting material about Dnyandev Wankhede

Bombay high court (HC) on Monday refused to grant a blanket injunction restraining the Maharashtra minority affairs minister and Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) leader Nawab Malik from posting material about Dnyandev Wankhede, father of Narcotics Control Bureau’s western region zonal director Sameer Wankhede and his family, but added that Malik could do so “only after reasonable verification of facts.”

Bombay HC said Nawab Malik could post material about Wankhede “only after reasonable verification of facts.” (HT FILE)

The court held that while the right to privacy of Dnyandev Wankhede was important, Sameer was a public officer and, therefore, the public had a right to examine and comment on his actions.

The single judge bench of justice Madhav Jamdar while hearing the defamation suit filed by Dnyandev Wankhede on November 7 had held that out of the various reliefs sought in the suit, it will hear arguments only pertaining to ad-interim reliefs sought in the interim application.

“The right to speak is a fundamental right,” Malik said in response to the Bombay HC decision. “People need to understand that a person speaking with responsibility cannot be stopped. We welcome the decision of the high court and our fight against injustice will be continued. Satyamev Jayate (Truth shall prevail).”

Sameer Wankhede, on the other hand, expressed an inability to comment on the development. When asked if the family will appeal against the refusal of injunction, he said from the news reports it appeared to be reasonable, but will not be able to offer any comments as yet without perusing the judgment.

Meanwhile, Maik tweeted a picture on Monday in which Sameer Wankhede can be seen signing his ‘nikhanama’ (a marriage certificate under Islamic Law) at his wedding. “Photograph of Sameer Dawood Wankhede signing his ‘Nikah Nama’,” he stated in the post. He also posted a picture of Wankhede’s nikahnama in his tweet. Malik had alleged that Wankhede is a Muslim by birth and used his father’s previous identity to get a job in the Indian Revenue Service (IRS) of a scheduled caste category. He claimed that his father Dnyandev Wankhede converted to Islam before marrying Wankhede’s mother Zaheda Bano.

Wankhede and his family refuted the charges. Wankhede admitted that he had a nikah with his first wife Dr Shabana Qureishi but said that he registered his marriage under provisions of the Special Marriages Act. Malik has levelled a series of serious allegations such as “extortion and ransom” against the NCB zonal director.

In this case, the ad-interim reliefs included seeking “an order of injunction preventing and/or restraining the Defendant (Malik), his agents, servants, authorized representatives, his party members and all others acting under and on his instructions from publishing, writing, speaking in any media, including electronic media and the social media handles, or publishing in any manner whatsoever any content / material which is defamatory about the Plaintiff (Dnyandev Wankhede) and/ or his family members.”

The defamation suit had sought damages of ₹1.25 crore and deletion of articles, comments and statements on the digital and electronic media as they contained statements and documents like the nikahnama (of Sameer’s marriage with Dr Shabana Qureishi), birth certificate, etc, of members of the Wankhede family, which the plaintiffs said was aimed at harming and maligning the reputation of the entire family.

Senior advocate Arshad Shaikh for Dnyandev Wankhede had argued that Malik’s claims about Sameer Wankhede’s birth certificate, in which the father’s name was mentioned as ‘Dawood’ and not ‘Dnyandev’, was not properly verified. He said the latest copy of the birth certificate issued by the BMC on November 17, 2021 showed the father’s name to be Dnyandev.

Shaikh also argued that though Dnyandev was a Hindu and from the Mahar community, Malik had raised doubts in the mind of the public by posting the primary school admission and leaving certificate of Sameer wherein the religion was mentioned as Muslim. Shaikh had submitted that the error had been corrected in 1993 and all subsequent documents of Sameer showed his father’s name as Dnyandev.

Shaikh further submitted a listed of 28 documents to prove that his client’s name was Dnyandev and not Dawood, but as Malik continued to post some documents or the other, there should be a blanket injunction restraining him from posting any material pertaining to Dnyandev Wankhede , his son or other members of the family till the suit was decided. Shaikh also submitted that the disclosure of documents pertaining to the Wankhede family was an infringement of their right to privacy.

Shaikh had also stated that Malik was retaliating for the arrest of his son-in-law Sameer Khan by the NCB in January 2021. Khan was accused of dealing in contraband, and was behind bars for nearly eight months.

Malik’s lawyer Atul Damle refuted the allegations and said Malik had only referred to public documents provided by authorities, and therefore, there was no defamation. Damle said there was evidence to show the documents had been manipulated by the Wankhedes to get benefit from the scheduled caste (SC) quota. He also argued that Malik had only been reposting material from the social media account of the Wankhede family members and hence reasonable verification of the documents had been done by his client before posting them.

Damle also submitted that Sameer had misused his position as an NCB officer to extort money and used the money for trips to Maldives and Dubai.

The order by justice Jamdar, while admitting that the issue raised by Malik pertaining to Sameer Wankhede was important as he was a public official and his actions could come under scrutiny, he (Sameer) did have a right to privacy. The bench concluded the order stating, “It is necessary to direct the Defendant (Malik) that he should conduct reasonable verification of the facts before publishing, writing, speaking in media including electronic media and the social media or publishing in any manner whatsoever any content/material which amounts to defamatory of Plaintiff (Dnyandev Wankhede) or his family members.”