Reliance Group Chairman Anil Dhirubhai Ambani has filed a defamation suit worth Rs 5,000 crore against the Congress owned newspaper National Herald. The Rs 5,000 crore suit filed by the Reliance Group Chairman is a direct attack on the Congress president Rahul Gandhi who had vociferously tried to portray the Rafale deal as a scam. The Congress president and its other leaders have been crying themselves hoarse in order to attract public attention and blemish PM Modi led central government and the Reliance Group. Constant allegations levied by the Congress leaders had led to a loss of reputation and a blemish on the image of one of the largest business groups in the country. The civil defamation suit has been filed by Reliance Defence, Reliance Infrastructure and Reliance Aerostructure jointly.
The suit filed against the Congress mouthpiece by Anil Ambani mentions the article titled ‘Anil Ambani floated Reliance Defence 10 days before Modi announced Rafale deal’. The suit goes on to say that this accusation levied on Reliance Group was slanderous and defamatory in nature which had hurt the reputation of the company. The defamation suit filed in the court of civil and session judge P J Tamakuwala, names Associated Journals Limited, the publisher of the National Herald, the editor-in-charge Zafar Agha and the author of the article Vishwadeepak.
Anil Ambani had earlier too tried to make the Congress leaders and National Herald desist from proclaiming and publishing derogatory comments by writing a letter to the Congress president Rahul Gandhi. In the letter Anil Ambani had tried to clarify that the “Congress has been misinformed, misdirected and misled by malicious vested interests and corporate rivals”, it had also tried to make clear that the deal between Dassault and Reliance Defence had no intervention of the central government led by PM Modi. Congress had however refused to desist from misinforming and spreading falsehood related to the deal and had tried to blot the name even after receiving legal notices from the Group to “cease and desist” from laying accusations against the company.
The defamation suit filed went on to say that the article published in the National Herald “misleads the general public to believe that undue business favours are being extended to them by the government of the day”. It goes on to add that the article conveyed a “negative image” of the company which “adversely affects the public perception” of Reliance Group and its chairman Anil Ambani. The petition mentions that this has caused “considerable damage” to the name and goodwill of the Reliance Group for which it seeks a damage of Rs 5,000 crore.
National Herald itself is embroiled in a controversy surrounding its owners the Nehru-Gandhi family. One of the articles published in the newspaper “Rafale: Modi’s Bofors” had in turn almost in the most sublime fashion ended up incriminating the Congress itself. The fortunes of the National Herald and its owners from the Nehru-Gandhi family are indeed at an all time low. Their fall from grace followed by Rahul Gandhi taking over the leadership of the Congress has added fuel to the fire, this lawsuit filed by Anil Ambani against the Congress owned newspaper might prove to be the final nail in coffin for the newspaper. The Gandhi-family controlled organisation National Herald has already landed the Congress in trouble with BJP leader Subramanian Swamy discovering an alleged scam by the Gandhi family to gain control of Rs 5,000 crore assets owned by Associated Journals Limited (AJL). AJL also owns the National Herald. National Herald is almost a part of the Congress’ organisational structure and the way it is involved in pro-Congress propaganda is not hidden from anyone.