Days after the Lok Sabha polls came to an end, billionaire businessman Anil Ambani has reportedly decided to not pursue with the Rs 5,000-crore civil defamation suits filed against Congress leaders and National Herald newspaper. Anil Ambani had filed the defamation cases against the Congress and its mouthpiece National Herald for alleging that the former benefited illegally from the Rafale fighter jet deal signed between India and French aviation company Dassault Aviation.
Anil Ambani’s Reliance Group had filed these cases in a court in Ahmedabad in Gujarat and the case was being heard by judge PJ Tamakuwala.
Ambani’s lawyer Rasesh Parikh told news agency PTI on Tuesday, “We have intimated the defendants that we are going to withdraw the suits against them.”
Confirming the news, the lawyer defending National Herald and Congress leaders, PS Champaneri, said that the Reliance Group’s counsel had told him that his client had instructed him to withdraw the defamation suits against them.
After Janta Ka Reporter first reported how huge financial irregularities may have taken place in the Rafale deal to help Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s friend Anil Ambani, the Congress had decided to build its campaign around it. Congress President Rahul Gandhi had coined a campaign slogan Chowkidar Chor Hai against Modi.
Among those named in defamation cases were Congress leaders Sunil Jakhar, Randeep Singh Surjewala, Oommen Chandy, Ashok Chavan, Abhishek Manu Singhvi, Sanjay Nirupam and Shaktisinh Gohil.
The complainant had asked the defendants to ‘cease and desist’ from making any libelous allegations against Ambani or his defence company that bagged the offset contract in the Rafale deal.
