Former Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) officer Sameer Wankhede is back in the news. This time, for filing a defamation suit against Rakhi Sawant and advocate Ali Kaashif Khan. Khan represented model Munmun Dhamecha in the Cordelia cruise drugs bust case. On Tuesday, the former NCB officer claimed Rs 11 lakh from both in the defamation suit he filed in the Dindoshi Civil Court alleging that they made slanderous comments against him.
Sameer Wankhede’s defamation suit comes in the wake of an interview Khan gave to a news channel in 2023 where he allegedly made statements that were a ‘deliberate lie’ and ‘concocted, baseless’. In his suit, Wankhede has levelled serious allegations against Khan for calling the former officer ‘media obsessed’ and the one who ‘targets celebrities’. Conversely, he claims that during his stint as an Indian Revenue Service officer, he has had a “blotless career throughout his life in government services.”
The defamatory suit filed against Khan also mentioned another allegation levied by him on the former officer. He had alleged, “He (Wankhede) lodges false cases and misuses section 29. This was the case of Rhea Chakraborty.”
Wankhede, in his application, further mentioned, “The defendant (Khan) posted a story wherein he inter alia made a comment, ‘when I didn’t spare officer like SAMEER WANKHEDE, who is now facing CBI FIR, who are you? Don’t attempt to come on my enemy list’.” Quoting Khan’s statement in his application, the former NCB officer accused the lawyer of prejudicing the mind of the public in an ongoing case in which Munmun Dhamecha, was one of the accused. Munman, for those unversed, is Khan’s one of the clients and was arrested in the cruise drug raid case in 2021.
Wankhede also mentioned that Kaashif Khan had also posted defamatory content on his Instagram account. The lawyer has reshared a post dropped by Sawant on his handle which caused further damage to his reputation. Claiming that he faced continuous mental agony, emotional distress and harassment due to Khan’s baseless allegations, Wankhede sought Rs 11,55,000 in compensation in his application against both Sawant and Khan.