A designated MP/MLA court in West Bengal issued summon to Union Home Minister Amit Shah today to appear either personally or through a lawyer before it on February 22 in connection with a defamation case filed against him by Trinamool Congress MP Abhishek Banerjee.
The special judge of MP/MLA court at Bidhannagar directed that Amit Shah is “required to appear in person/by pleader” at 10 am on 22nd February.
The judge directed that Amit Shah’s attendance either personally or through a lawyer is necessary to answer to a charge of defamation under section 500 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).
In a press note, Mamata Banerjee’s nephew Abhishek Banerjee’s lawyer Sanjay Basu claimed that Amit Shah had made certain defamatory statements against the Trinamool MP on August 11, 2018, at a rally of the BJP at Mayo Road in Kolkata.
As per the submission in court, Shah had said, “The residents of the village in Bengal. Has the money reached your village? Where did it go? Where? Modi ji has sent it. Where did Rs 3,59,000 crore go? This has been gifted to the nephew and the syndicates. This has been sacrificed at the altar of corruption by the Trinamool Congress.”
The on August 13, MP Abhishek Banerjee sent a legal notice to Shah stating, “In the course of your speech you had made various allegations against my client by making a flimsy and thinly veiled reference and/or insinuation to the ‘bhatija’ (nephew) of the Hon’ble Chief Minister of the State of West Bengal.”
Later, Abhisekh filed a criminal defamation case against Shah.