Jay Shah, son of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) president Amit Shah, on Monday filed a defamation suit against the author, editor, and owner of the news website 'The Wire' in an Ahmedabad court, for alleging huge growth in his firm's turnover in a year, reports ANI. The hearing of the matter is scheduled for October 11.
Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate S K Gadhvi ordered a court inquiry into the matter under CrPC section 302, reports PTI
In his application, 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 M K Venu, managing editor Monobina Gupta, public editor Pamela Philipose and the Foundation for Independent Journalism, the non-profit company that 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).
A report, written by Rohini Singh on the news website 'The Wire', details the growth of Jay Shah's company, Temple Enterprise Private Ltd, from revenues of Rs. 50,000 in 2014-'15 to Rs. 80.5 crore in 2015-16.
The report also reveals a number of loans received by companies connected to the BJP president?s son, based on documents filed with the Registrar of Companies.
Prior to the suit filed by Jay Shah, Union Minister Piyush Goyal on Sunday rejected any allegation sought to be made against Jay Shah or any of his party leaders.
Addressing a press conference in New Delhi, Goyal informed that a criminal defamation suit of Rs. 100 crores will be filed against the news website. Goyal said that the article is written to damage the reputation of the party president Amit Shah.
(With inputs from agencies)