Delhi health minister Satyendra Jain has filed separate criminal defamation complaints in the court of Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate, Tees Hazaari, against sacked Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) minister Kapil Mishra and BJP-SAD MLA Manjinder Singh Sirsa.
According to a statement released by AAP, Kapil Mishra made a ‘blatantly false, misleading, baseless and a defamatory’ statement before the media that the complainant (Satyendra Jain) had handed over Rs two crore to the Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, on 5 May at his residence.
“Mishra did not stop here and went on to malafidely link the complainant with completely false allegations about some fictitious deals,” the statement said.
“These statements were repeatedly telecasted and printed by national media on all platforms – electronic, print and social – which has caused immense damage to the complainant and his family. Further, such statements were carried by the media without making an attempt to even verify the completely false and libellous allegations,” the statement added.
The party has also alleged that on 9 May, Sirsa in a media conference made a ‘false and libellous’ statement, which was published by a Hindi newspaper, that the complainant allegedly indulged in circulation of illegitimate money.
The party said: “Such statements without any basis have been put in public domain to damage the reputation of the complainant and has become a habit of the accused to make and circulate such falsehoods.”