Mumbai : In the additional affidavit filed by Maharashtra Minister Nawab Malik before Bombay High Court, Malik has claimed that he verified NCB zonal director Sameer Wankhede’s birth records from the birth register maintained by the local civic body. The affidavit was to be filed before hearing of Wankhede’s father’s defamation suit on Friday in the high court.
Malik, submitting the affidavit in the defamation suit, wants to substantiate his contention that Sameer Wankhede, despite being born a Muslim secured a central government job, claiming to be from the scheduled caste.
Malik’s affidavit states, “I say that I am filing present short additional affidavit in reply only for the limited purpose of disclosing that I have reasonably verified the documents annexed to the Plaint, which the Plaintiff (Wankhede) is alleging to be defamatory of him.”
The affidavit goes on to say that the documents produced by Malik can be divided into two parts. “One part consists of certificates issued by the concerned authorities such as birth certificate of Sameer Wankhede and nikah nama of his first marriage with Dr Shabana Quraishi. Other part consists of tweets made on social media,” says the affidavit.
Elaborating further, the affidavit states that the birth certificate and the nikah nama have been “reasonably verified”.
The affidavit says, “I say that as far as the birth certificate of Sameer Wankhede is concerned, record of the same is maintained by E ward of Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai. I say that I have verified the same and entry of the birth of Sameer Wankhede, for which the corporation has maintained the record can be found in the register maintain for record of birth at Sr. No. 3744 of concerned year.”
As for the nikah nama, the affidavit states the document was provided to Malik by a relative of Wankhedeās first wife.
About all the other posts tweeted by Malik which Wankhede family points out as defamatory, in the affidavit Malik claims that the senior NCB officer had in his suit already “admitted that the photographs and information, is only reposted by Malik, are taken from their (Wankhede) social media accounts.”
Malik has stressed that Wankhede has not averred that the birth certificate or nikah nama are false and fabricated, and that the photos and information shared by the NCP leader on his Twitter handle were reposted from other accounts. With this Malik has urged the high court to dismiss Wankhede’s suit.
Also Read : Sameer Wankhede’s father files a defamation suit against Nawab Malik
A defamation suit has been filed against Maharashtra Cabinet minister Nawab Malik by Narcotics Control Bureau’s (NBC) zonal director Sameer Wankhede’s father Dhyandev Kachruji Wankhede.
Wankhede’s lawyer, Arshad Shaikh, said Malik has been calling the Wankhede family āfraud and questioning their religious beliefs, saying they are not Hindusā. He added that Malik was calling everybody (in the Wankhede family) a fraud. Literally, on a daily basis,” and destroying the practice of his daughter Yasmin, who is a criminal lawyer and does not appear in narcotics cases.
The suit says that Malik has done āirreparable loss, damage, harm, prejudice to the name, character, reputation and societal image of plaintiff and his family membersā.
Dhyandev wants a permanent injunction restraining Malik, his party members and all others acting under or on his instructions from publishing, writing or speaking in the media about him and his family members.
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