The National Commission for Scheduled Castes has asked Maharashtra's chief secretary and director general of police, Mumbai police commissioner and the Union home secretary to appear before it on January 31 for an in-person hearing on former Narcotics Control Bureau zonal director Sameer Wankhede's 'harassment' complaint.
Fadnavis said, "Nawab Malik and his family members were part of a company which purchased land in Kurla (area of Mumbai) at a very low rate by making some fictitious documents. There are four such land purchase deals where I can firmly say that Malik has entered into land deals with the underworld."
Wankhede presented his version and official documents related to the raid, which took place in October last year at the international cruise terminal in Mumbai, before NCB deputy director general for the northern region Gyaneshwar Singh.
The 62-year-old Nationalist Congress Party leader was taken into custody shortly before 3 pm after he was questioned for about six hours at the ED office in south Mumbai's Ballard Estate area.
NCP leader Nawab Malik had levelled a string of allegations against the NCB official, including illegal phone tapping.
Malik also strongly backed former Maharashtra home minister and party colleague Anil Deshmukh, arrested by the Enforcement Directorate in a money laundering case, saying he was being "framed" by misusing central agencies.
In a suit filed before a civil court in suburban Borivali last month, Wankhede and his wife, actor Kranti Redkar, have sought a permanent injunction against Google India, Facebook India online services and Twitter Communications India on allowing any 'defamatory' post against them on their platforms.
Shelar also claimed that the MVA govt was obstructing the Centre's strong actions to tackle the drug menace in the country.
The four-five member team, led by NCB's Deputy Director General (northern region) Gyaneshwar Singh, is also likely to visit a few other places and will also record the statement of Prabhakar Sail, an independent witness in the case.
Wankhede is facing the vigilance probe by NCB after an independent witness in the drugs-on-cruise case, in which Aryan Khan is one of the accused, claimed of overhearing a discussion of a Rs 25 crore pay-off, including Rs 8 crore for Sameer Wankhede.
A division bench of Justices A S Gadkari and SG Dige said the media reports have said the information is from Central Bureau of Investigation sources.
Stepping up its attack on the Narcotics Control Bureau, the Nationalist Congress Party on Friday alleged that the anti-drug agency let off two persons after a raid on a cruise ship off Mumbai coast recently, with one of them being the brother-in-law of a 'high-profile' BJP leader.
The Bombay high court on Monday said no coercive steps shall be taken against IRS officer Sameer Wankhede till April 10 on notices issued to him on the NCB's preliminary inquiry over irregularities in a drugs case related to actor Sushant Singh Rajput's death.
The PIL has also sought a direction to the Union Ministry of Home Affairs to frame the national witness protection scheme as recommended in various reports of the Law Commission.
NCB zonal director Sameer Wankhede should be suspended following the court's findings, he said.
"Is that Qazi above the Constitution? He should produce papers to show Sameer Wankhede had converted (to Islam) to marry his first wife," Redkar said, adding Wankhede had performed the 'nikah' in 2006 only to fulfil the wish of his late mother, who was Muslim.
Pithani was Rajput's friend and was also staying with the late actor at his Bandra residence in suburban Mumbai, he said.
The NCB also found some documents and some material, suspected to be drugs, after an over six-hour-long search onboard the ship, the official said, without divulging any further details.
Former Narcotics Control Bureau zonal director Sameer Wankhede, accused of demanding a bribe from Shah Rukh Khan for not implicating his son Aryan Khan in the 2021 drugs-on-cruise case, has claimed in his petition that the superstar praised the officer's "integrity" and pleaded with him to be kind to Aryan.
The special enquiry team of the Narcotics Control Bureau, which is probing allegations of extortion attempt in the drugs case involving actor Shah Rukh Khan's son Aryan, has recorded statements of over a dozen persons so far, a senior official said on Friday.
The NCB personnel late Saturday night carried out multiple raids in Mumbai's suburbs, including Goregaon. They also arrested one more person, identified as Shivraj Ramdas, from Santacruz area on Friday night in connection with the case of drugs seizure, the official said.
Nationalist Congress Party spokesperson and Maharashtra minister Nawab Malik on Saturday asked why the NCB's zonal director Sameer Wankhede used a "family friend" as an independent witness in three investigations.
Speaking to reporters in Mumbai, Malik said he was not fighting a battle of caste or religion, but highlighting how a government job was obtained on a 'bogus' caste certificate.
Continuing his tirade against Nartocits Control Bureau's Mumbai zonal director Sameer Wankhede, Nationalist Congress Party spokesperson and Maharashtra minister Nawab Malik on Friday said he would expose some Bharatiya Janata Party leaders and their alleged connection with the officer in the winter session of the state Legislature to be held in December.
The NCB searched Singh's house and office in the morning as part of its probe into alleged drug use in the Hindi film industry.
Malik also alleged that Rajput's girlfriend Rhea Chakraborty was implicated in a 'fake case' by the NCB.
A special court in Mumbai on Wednesday refused bail to former Maharashtra minister Nawab Malik in an alleged money laundering case linked to a land deal in which fugitive gangster Dawood Ibrahim and his aides were involved.
The NCB has arrested a Goa-based man who allegedly had links with the accused in a drugs case related to actor Sushant Singh Rajput's death, an NCB official said on Monday.
The Bombay High Court on Wednesday rejected an application seeking pre-arrest bail filed by Samville D'Souza, whose name had cropped up in connection with allegations of pay-off in the case of drug seizure in which Aryan Khan, actor Shah Rukh Khan's son, was arrested.
The clean chit to Aryan Khan and five others by the Narcotics Control Bureau on Friday has once again brought the central agency's former zonal director Sameer Wankhede under the spotlight.
Dr Zaheed Qureshi said that when his daughter Shabana married Sameer Wankhede, the latter practised Islam, and would occasionally visit mosques.
Dnyandev Wankhede, Sameer's father, has sought damages of Rs 1.25 crore from Malik and an order restraining him from making further false or incorrect statements against the Wankhede family.
'I had performed the 'nikah' of Sameer Wankhede and Shabana Qureshi. Her father had approached me to perform the marriage in the Lokhandwala complex area of Mumbai. The groom's name was Sameer Dawood Wankhede who married Shabana Qureshi'
Maharashtra minister and NCP leader Nawab Malik on Thursday accused NCB's zonal director Sameer Wankhede and his family of obtaining two separate certificates of his mother following her death in 2015, each mentioning her as Muslim and Hindu.
The Uddhav Thackeray-led Maha Vikas Aghadi government in Maharashtra which completes two years in power on November 27 has survived against all odds amid the coronavirus pandemic.
Prabhakar Sail, an independent witness in the cruise drugs seizure case, on Sunday claimed that a Narcotics Control Bureau officer and some other persons demanded Rs 25 crore from Bollywood superstar Shah Rukh Khan to release his son Aryan Khan in the case.
The Narcotics Control Bureau's special investigation team has found "grave irregularities" and gaps in the probe of the Mumbai drugs-on-cruise case, with officials saying its first team that arrested Bollywood superstar Shah Rukh Khan's son Aryan did not follow rules like mandatory medical test of accused, video recording of the raids and corroborate evidence for WhatsApp chats.
On legal front, Wankhede, who the NCB asserted has an impeccable service record, failed to get any relief related to an affidavit on the sensational extortion claims made by the independent witness, Prabhakar Sail, with a special court saying it cannot pass a blanket order barring courts from taking cognisance of the document.
Maharashtra NCP minister Nawab Malik on Monday claimed that Narcotics Control Bureau's zonal director Sameer Wankhede used forged documents including his birth certificate. Wankhede, an IRS officer of the 2008 batch, slammed the minister, saying his action was defamatory in nature and an invasion of his family's privacy.
There was heavy police deployment outside the NCB office, where barricades were put up.
