Lagatar24 Desk
Mumbai, July 4: In response to a defamation complaint brought by the wife of BJP politician Kirit Somaiya, a Mumbai court on Monday issued a bailable warrant against Shiv Sena MP Sanjay Raut.
In connection with the defamation action brought by Medha Somaiya, Raut was expected to appear before the metropolitan magistrate court at Mazgaon, but he failed to do so.
In response to Raut’s claims that Medha Somaiya was complicit in a $100 billion ‘toilet scam,’ the latter made those claims in a criminal defamation complaint against him on May 18.
She claimed in her case that Raut’s accusations were wholly false and defamatory in character.
“The statements made by the accused to the media are per se defamatory. The statements have been made to malign my character in the eyes of the general public,” she said in the complaint.
According to Medha Somaiya’s complaint, she read an item in Sena mouthpiece Saamna where she was charged with constructing unauthorised toilets by chopping down mangroves without first obtaining the required authorization from environmental authorities. According to the Saamna article, she was complicit in a scam that cost 100 crore, about which then-Bombay Municipal Corporation chairman Iqbal Singh Chahal informed the Maha Vikas Aghadi administration in a report.
She also requested that the court order Raut to retract the article and print an unqualified apology to her on the front page of the Sena publication in addition to asking Raut to deposit 100 crore in the chief minister’s relief fund or any other fund that the court thought appropriate.
