Bombay High Court takes on record additional documents filed by Nawab Malik and Dhyandev Wankhede

The Bombay High Court on Thursday, took on record certain additional documents filed by Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) leader Nawab Malik and Dhyandev Wankhede (plaintiff), the father of Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) Zonal Director, Sameer Wankhede in the defamation suit filed by the plaintiff..Justice Madhav Jamdar had earlier reserved its order on the aspect of interim relief in plaintiff's defamation suit.The interim application by the plaintiff had sought a temporary injunction restraining Malik from making any statements in the future about the plaintiff..However on November 16, 2021, Malik moved the High Court seeking leave from the Court to take on record the additional documents which he sought to place on record to substantiate his alleged defamatory tweets..Malik submitted the following documents:A letter by the Public Health Officer from the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) with a copy of the declaration pertaining to the change of name of Sameer Wankhede; School leaving certificate of Sameer Wankhede issued by St Joseph's High School and St Paul High School; The admissions form to the St Joseph's High School. .In response to the documents submitted by Malik and to counter the same, the plaintiff submitted the following documents:Digitised birth certificate issued by BMC;Caste certificate of the plaintiff. .Justice Jamdar heard advocate Arshad Shaikh for the plaintiff and Senior Advocate Atul Damle for Malik on the documents which are being submitted. After hearing the parties for a short while, he took the documents on record. "Both parties are asked not to produce anything further," Justice Jamdar stated while declaring that the order will be pronounced on November 22, 2021. .The suit was filed after Malik shared Wankhede’s purported birth certificate on his twitter handle allegedly imputing that Wankhede’s father was a Muslim and that his name was ‘Dawood’.In the suit, Dhyandev Wankhede, the plaintiff, claimed that the tirade against his son started only after Malik’s son-in-law Sameer Khan was arrested by NCB in January this year under NDPS Act..The suit filed through advocates Divakar Rai and Saurabh Tamhankar sought the following prayers:Order declaring that statements made by Malik are "tortious and defamatory in nature";Order of permanent injunction restraining Malik from publishing or making statements in any kind of media, including his social media accounts;Directions to Malik to delete any statements, press releases, tweets released by Malik;Directions to pay damages to the tune of ₹1.25 crore for allegedly making defamatory comments against his son and his family in press conferences and on his social media account..In response Malik had filed a detailed reply challenging the maintainability of the suit.He had also set out his stance in compliance with the Court's directions asking Malik to state on record whether he had verified the information against Wankhede before uploading the same on his social media accounts.On Court's directions, Wankhede's father submitted a 20-page affidavit consisting of 28 documents to show that his name had always been ‘Dynandeo’ and he was from the ‘Mahar’ caste of Hindu as per the caste certificate.