Barely a day before the third phase of the Assembly elections, Trinamul Congress general secretary Mukul Roy filed two defamation suits against heavyweight CPI(M) central committee member Gautam Deb on Tuesday for accusing Trinamul Congress chief and railway minister Mamata Banerjee, Mr Roy and their party of pumping
in “crores of black money” in the polls on April 16. The Union minister of state for shipping went to the Bankshall court at around 11.30 am and filed a criminal defamation suit at the court of chief metropolitan magistrate (CMM) Rabi Ranjan Chatterjee against the state housing minister. He later said, “We had served him a legal notice earlier and were waiting for his reply within the deadline that ended on Monday. As no explanation reached us, we moved the court and filed a criminal defamation suit against the housing minister. The CMM took cognisance of our plea.”
It may be noted that Mr Roy had sent a legal notice to Mr Deb on April 18 through his counsels on the instructions of Ms Banerjee. Mr Roy’s counsel Rajdeep Majumdar said, “The CMM issued a summon to Mr Deb and directed him to appear before the court on May 26 and explain his charges.”
The Trinamul Congress general secretary next went to the Calcutta high court and filed another defamation suit, this time civil, before Justice Sanjib Bhattacharya against Mr Deb claiming a damage of `15 crores, his counsel Bipul Kundalia said. Mr Kundalia added that the plaint will be served to Mr Deb who needs to reply to it. After that the process would start, he elaborated.
Replying to a question on the amount of civil suit, the Union minister explained: “The huge amount of loss of reputation and injury caused to the images of our leader, the party and me are more important than the amount of money.”