Court to decide on notice to Rahul Gandhi, Randeep Surjewala on Monday

A metropolitan court completed hearing arguments and reserved its order till Monday afternoon, on whether to take cognizance of the defamation complaint filed by the chairman of

Ahmedabad District

Cooperative (ADC) Bank and to issue notices to Congress president Rahul Gandhi and party spokesman

Randeep Surjewala

.


On Friday, S V Raju, counsel of the Amit Shah-linked bank, argued that Surjewala’s press briefing and Gandhi’s tweet were defamatory and their action attracted Section 500 of the IPC, dealing with punishment for criminal defamation.

The bank and its chairman, Ajay Patel, filed two different defamation complaints last year and they presented five witnesses before the court to substantiate their claims, said advocate Ajitsinh Jadeja.

The bank and its chairman are seeking action against the Congress leaders for defaming them by projecting them as scamsters by claiming that they were involved in Rs 745 crore scam after demonetization. The political leaders claimed that massive amounts had been deposited in the cooperative bank in just five days after the Centre decided to demonetize high-value currency notes in November 2016.

The complainants took exception to Gandhi’s tweet saying #ShahZyadaKhaGaya was damaging to the bank’s reputation and many potential depositors refrained from depositing in the bank. They also claimed that the false claims made by Surjewala in his June 22, 2018 press conference and Gandhi’s tweeting the same content had projected the bank and its chairman in bad light.

On this defamation complaint, additional chief metropolitan magistrate S K Gadhvi had conducted the inquiry.