The Delhi High Court on Friday told former Narcotics Control Bureau Mumbai zonal director Sameer Wankhede to explain how a defamation suit he filed against the Netflix series The Ba***ds of Bollywood was maintainable in Delhi, Bar and Bench reported.

Justice Purushaindra Kumar Kaurav asked Wankhede whether the cause of action for the legal proceedings had arisen in the national capital.

The former Narcotics Control Bureau officer’s counsel Sandeep Sethi contended that the suit was maintainable in Delhi, as it was seen by viewers in the city. “In so far as the web series is published for viewing in Delhi, I am defamed,” the counsel contended, according to Bar and Bench.

The court directed Wankhede to amend his complaint to show that a cause of action against the film, directed by Aryan Khan, was made out in Delhi.

Wankhede headed a Narcotics Control Bureau team that had arrested Aryan Khan in the 2021 Cordelia cruise case.

He has named production house Red Chillies Entertainment and its co-founder Gauri Khan in the suit.

The Indian Revenue Service officer has sought Rs 2 crore in damages, which he said would be donated to the Tata Memorial Cancer Hospital in Mumbai.

In his suit, Wankhede has claimed that the series was “deliberately conceptualised and executed” to malign his reputation “in a colourable and prejudicial manner”, even as proceedings related to the matter are pending before the Bombay High Court and a special Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances court.

The suit also objected to a scene in which a character makes an obscene gesture after reciting the slogan “Satyamev Jayate”.

Wankhede contended that the gesture was a grave violation of the provisions of the Prevention of Insults to National Honour Act, 1971.

The 2021 Cordelia case

On October 2, 2021, Aryan Khan was arrested along with his friend Arbaaz Merchant, model Munmun Dhamecha and others after a raid on Cordelia cruise ship off the coast of Mumbai.

The agency had claimed to recover several narcotic substances from the ship.

On October 28, 2021, the Bombay High Court granted bail to Aryan Khan and others, noting that he was not found in possession of drugs and that there was no evidence of a conspiracy.

In May 2022, the Narcotics Control Bureau cleared Khan of charges in the case as it did not find corroborative evidence against him.

Soon after, Wankhede was transferred to the Directorate General of Taxpayer Services in Chennai.