Former Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) Mumbai zonal director Sameer Wankhede has filed a case against NCP leader and former Maharashtra minister Nawab Malik at the Goregaon police stations on charges of defamation and Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe (Prevention of Atrocities) Act.
Malik had earlier alleged that Wankhede had submitted a fake caste certificate to get a government job. Malik is currently behind bars after having been arrested by the Enforcement Directorate (ED), in connection with an alleged money laundering case.
"After the clearance given by the Mumbai district caste certificate verification committee of the Maharashtra Social Justice Department, following a probe for allegedly submitting a fake caste certificate to get a government job, the truth has come to light and after receiving the order of the committee, I had approached the police and got a complaint registered on Sunday against Nawab Malik for causing atrocity, trauma and mental agony to the entire family," Wankhede told the Free Press Journal.
Based on the complaint, an FIR was registered against the politician under Indian Penal Code Sections 500 (punishment for defamation), 501 (printing or engraving matter known to be defamatory) and provisions of the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act. An assistant commissioner of police rank officer will be conducting enquiry into the case, sources said.
The district caste certificate verification committee in its order on Friday had stated Wankhede, an Indian Revenue Service (IRS) officer, was not a Muslim by birth and it has been proven that he belonged to Mahar caste, which is a Scheduled Caste (SC). Complaints filed by Malik and others regarding the caste claim of Wankhede and the religion of the caste certificate are not substantiated. Hence, the complaints are being rejected due to lack of facts in the complaint, the caste committee's order had stated.
Wankhede had come into limelight following the NCB's high-profile raids in October 2021 on a Mumbai cruise after which the agency arrested actor Shah Rukh Khan's son Aryan Khan and 19 others, and claimed to have also seized some narcotics during the raid. The NCB had later given a clean chit to Aryan Khan.
