An Ahmedabad metropolitan court on Monday adjourned the hearing of the criminal defamation case against news portal The Wire filed by Jay Amit Shah to December 16.
The petitioner, the son of BJP president Amit Shah, reportedly didn’t turn up in court for the first day of hearing.
This was the third adjournment in the high-profile case after Shah’s lawyer senior advocate SV Raju failed to appear in court for the first hearing scheduled on October 11 as he was busy in high court. The second time, the court had earlier adjourned the hearing to October 26 as the Gujarat High Court had declared the day a holiday.
The news portal The Wire and its editors and writer are facing defamation suit over a report that claimed the turnover of Jay Shah’s firm grew exponentially after BJP came to power in 2014.
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MK Venu, one of the founding editors of the portal, told Outlook: “This was the first day of the hearing and Jay Shah, the complainant in the criminal defamation against The Wire, did not show up.”
Venue said: “When the Judge asked the lawyer of Jay Shah about the absence of the complainant, his lawyer said he couldn’t come because of his social work commitments!”
"Procedurally, we were supposed to receive the documents from the other side. We will come on the December 16", Venu told Outlook.
The metropolitan court issued summonses to the news portal and its editors after it prima facie found that a case of defamation punishable with simple imprisonment for a term which may extend to two years, or with fine, or with both under section 500 of IPC was made out against all the seven respondents, including the write Rohini Singh.
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The order was issued after considering the depositions of three witnesses, including Jay Amit Shah, as well as documentary evidences produced by his lawyer S V Raju.
