Mumbai: The caste inquiry committee has given a clean chit to former NCB zonal director Sameer Wankhede in the case of alleged forgery in caste certificate. Wankhede landed in controversy after former Maharashtra minister Nawab Malik claimed that the officer had used a fake caste certificate to get a government job. Malik claimed that Wankhede was a fake caste certificate but he got a job under the reserved category.
However, now the caste committee has given him a clean chit saying that he was not a Muslim by birth. According to news agency, the order said that it has not been proved that Wankhede and his father had converted to Islam, but it has been proved that they belonged to the Mahar-37 SC.
Following the allegations, Sameer Wankhede had visited the National Commission for Scheduled Castes in Delhi in November last year and presented his case before the commission. Commission chairman Vijay Sampla said the documents provided by Sameer would be verified with the Maharashtra government. “If the documents are found to be valid, then on the basis of their documents no one can take action against them,” he had said.
In October last year, National Commission for Scheduled Castes Vice-Chairman Arun Halder had visited the Wankhede residence to see some of the original documents.
The charges against Wankhede came after they raided a cruise ship and arrested Shah Rukh Khan’s son Aryan Khan in a drugs racket case. As soon as the investigation started, the NCP leader claimed that Aryan was being framed and that the entire investigation was shoddy. In a series of tweets, Malik claimed that his caste certificate was also fake. The then Maharashtra government had said that it would investigate the fake certificate case against Wankhede. Aryan Khan was recently given a clean chit as no evidence was found against him.
Read in Hindi: ‘जन्म से मुसलमान नहीं’: जाति प्रमाण पत्र मामले में एनसीबी के पूर्व अधिकारी समीर वानखेड़े को क्लीन चिट