BJP president Amit Shah’s son Jay Shah on Monday filed a criminal defamation case at a Ahmedabad court against seven people of a news website even as Union Railway Minister Piyush Goyal alleged that the news report had tried “to defame and create baseless confusion” and dragged the names of party leaders.
Goyal, who spoke to newspersons here, said a separate civil case would also be filed later as it required “more paperwork”.
Shah’s son filed the defamation case after the news website thewire.in published a report on Sunday alleging a huge growth in his firm’s turnover following the year the BJP came to power at the Centre in 2014.
In his application, Jay Shah prayed for “criminal action against the respondents for defaming and tarnishing the
reputation of the complainant through an article, which is scandalous, frivolous, misleading, derogatory, libelous and consisting of several defamatory statements.”
The seven respondents in the case are the author of the article Rohini Singh, founding editors of the news portal Siddarth Varadarajan, Sidharth Bhatia and MK Venu, managing editor Monobina Gupta, public editor Pamela Philipose and the Foundation for Independent Journalism, the non-profit company which publishes The Wire.
The case has been filed under IPC Sections 500 (defamation), 109 (abetment), 39 (voluntarily cause grievous hurt) and 120 B (criminal conspiracy).
Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate SK Gadhvi ordered an enquiry by the court after Jay Shah filed the case. The court was of the opinion that it will issue summonses to the respondents only after the initial enquiry establishes a case.
The next hearing for a court enquiry will be on October 11, when two witnesses from Jay Shah’s side who had first informed him about the publication of the article, are likely to depose.
Additional Solicitor-General (ASG) Tushar Mehta will represent Jay Shah in the criminal defamation case he has filed against the news portal, said the Railway Minister and senior BJP leader.
The Union Minister said Mehta had sought law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad’s permission to appear for Jay and the approval was granted. Goyal said the purpose of the story was to defame the BJP and the Government. It published pictures of the Prime Minister, party president and “mine also” making derogatory and defamatory imputations, he said.
Asked about the Congress’ attack on the BJP over the claim that the Government was in the know of the entire episode as the ASG was given permission even before the story appeared, Goyal said they were aware of the matter as the news portal had sent Jay a questionnaire.
“We believe that he (Jay) has been wronged and he must get justice. There is no harm if the best of lawyers appear for him. An ASG can appear in a matter between two private parties after taking permission,” he told reporters.
Goyal maintained that the news report “full of innuendos” had tried to defame and create baseless confusion by “slant and false reporting.”
Asked what he felt about the timing of the story close to Gujarat polls, he claimed that there was nothing in the news that should worry the party and a political response would come from the people.
Refusing to draw any parallel between the Vadra case and that of Jay Shah, party leaders here sought to emphasize that unlike in the case of the son-in-law of Congress leader Sonia Gandhi, there was no Government dealing in Jay Shah’s case. They also wanted to know as to why the Congress leadership did not file a defamation suit then, if they felt wronged in the case, as was done by Jay Shah now.