Defamation case registered against Nawab Malik after clean chit to Sameer Wankhede

In a major update, Goregaon police on Sunday registered a defamation, and atrocity case against Nawab Malik on a complaint filed by former NCB zonal director Sameer Wankhede. A case has been registered against Nawab Malik under section 500, 501 of the IPC, 3(1) of the SC/ST act. ACP Goregaon division will investigate the case.

This comes a day after Mumbai City District Caste Certificate Scrutiny Committee on August 13 scrapped the complaints filed against Wankhede's family and confirmed that he belongs to the Mahar caste in Maharashtra. 

Questions over Wankhede's caste were raised by former Maharashtra minister Nawab Malik, who is currently in jail in connection with a money laundering case. In October 2021, applications were filed by Nawab Malik, alleging that Wankhede used a fake caste certificate to become an IRS officer via the reserved category. 

Sameer Wankhede gets clean chit from Caste Certificate Scrutiny Committee

The Social Justice Department of the Maharashtra government issued an order that stated that Wankhede, an Indian Revenue Service (IRS) officer, was not a Muslim by birth and it has been proven that he belongs to the Mahar caste, which is a Scheduled Caste.

"Complaints filed by Nawab Malik and others regarding the caste claim of Wankhede and regarding the religion of the caste certificate are not substantiated, following which complaints are being rejected due to lack of the facts in the complaint," the order said. 

It is important to note that Wankhede became a household name during October 2021 after NCB conducted late-night raids on a Mumbai cruise, following which, the agency had arrested Aryan Khan, son of actor Shah Rukh Khan, and 19 others and claimed to have seized some narcotics substances from them. The NCB later gave a clean chit to Khan, this year.