Hearing in Jay Shah’s defamation case postponed

Ahmedabad, Oct 11 (IANS) Hearing in a defamation case filed by BJP President Amit Shah's son Jay Shah against an online portal was on Wednesday postponed to October 16 after he and his lawyer didn't turn up at the Ahmedabad Metropolitan Magistrate's court.

An associate of Jay's lawyer S.V. Raju appeared before Justice S.K. Gadhavi and pleaded that his senior was unable to attend the court due to a case in the Gujarat High Court.

Jay Shah has filed the defamation case against the portal The Wire for publishing an article against him he says has brought him disrepute.

The judge agreed to postpone the next hearing to October 16 but warned that no further extension would be given.

When the associate lawyer, after speaking to someone over his mobile phone briefly, rushed back to the court and requested that the next hearing be held on October 13, the judge refused to entertain his request.

Jay Shah on Monday approached the court to file a defamation case against seven entities, including Rohini Singh, author of the article, editors Siddharth Vardarajan and M.K. Venu and the owner of the media outlet for publishing a "defamatory" article against him.

The article said that the turnover of Jay Shah's company had risen 16,000 times within a year of Narendra Modi becoming the Prime Minister.

In his complaint, Jay Shah said the writer and publisher of the article had "wilfully" and "fradulently" tampered with evidence and that "the article was a well-thoughout, well-planned and well-executed conspiracy against the complainant and dignitaries mentioned in the article".

Jay's lawyer Raju said on Monday that the write-up did not properly carry the information provided by them.