Mumbai: The Bombay High Court Monday directed Maharashtra Minister Nawab Malik to file his reply in a Rs 1.25 crore defamation suit filed by Dnyandev Wankhede, the father of Narcotics Control Bureau’s Mumbai Zonal Director Sameer Wankhede.
Justice M.J. Jamdar has now posted the matter for further hearing on interim relief to Wednesday (November 10) after Malik’s lawyer Atul Damle declined to give an undertaking the minister would not post comments or address the media.
Contending that Malik was posting something almost every day, Wankhede’s lawyer Arshad Shaikh, while stating a reply was necessary, sought interim relief whereby the minister would keep quiet on his client for the next few days.
Among other things, Wankhede has sought a permanent stay restraining Malik, his Nationalist Congress Party members and all others from publishing, writing, speaking to the media in any manner defamatory material pertaining to the Wankhede family.
He also sought deletion of articles, interviews, tweets, in electronic and social media against him and his family which are “tortuous and defamatory in nature.”
Wankhede also demanded Rs. 1.25 crore in damages from Malik for the “irreparable loss, damage, harm, prejudice to the name, character, reputation and societal image” of his family.
The defamation suit came last week after Malik made a series of sensational exposes and allegations against Sameer Wankhede and his family members for the past over a month in the wake of alleged rave party raids aboard the Cordelia Cruise October 2.
