HC dismisses contempt plea by Wankhede’s father alleging breach of assurance to court by Malik 

A bench of Justices Mahesh S Sonak and Jitendra S Jain was hearing contempt plea by Dhyandev Kachruji Wankhede filed in 2024, argued through advocate Sana Raees Khan, which alleged that Malik had put a social media post that breached the undertaking he had given before the HC.

On December 20, 2021, HC had accepted unconditional apology tendered by Malik for ‘wilfully breaching’ his undertaking given to the court that he won’t be making statements against the father of former NCB zonal director and his family. Malik, who was then a minister in the MVA government, had assured the court that he would not make any comments or pass any remarks against Dhyandev.

However, the NCP leader had said that his statement or undertaking would not prevent him from commenting on the political misuse of central agencies and the conduct of their officers in the course of performance of their official duties. Malik is presently part of Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar-led NCP.

As per the contempt plea, despite such an undertaking, Malik subsequently put a post on ‘X’ (formerly known as Twitter), which was in breach of his undertaking.

“On examining the tweet/post, we are not satisfied that such a statement amounts to any breach of undertaking,” the bench observed.

It added that in any event, the undertaking given by Malik was to operate during pendency of Wankhede’s defamation suit, which was now dismissed as objections raised by the HC registry over the plea were not cleared.
“The role of petitioner is only to place circumstances before the court. Considering the above circumstances, we do not deem it appropriate to exercise our contempt jurisdiction in this matter. The contempt petition is dismissed,” the HC held.

The court granted liberty to the petitioner to resort to any other remedies to secure restoration of defamation suit and pursue reliefs in the same, plea for which Wankhede is likely to file in due course.