Wire defamation case: Jay Shah’s lawyer doesn’t turn up

The lawyer for Jay Amit Shah, the son of BJP president Amit Shah, didn’t turn up in an Ahmedabad court on Wednesday for the criminal defamation case filed by Shah against the Wire.in, writer Rohini Singh and Wire founding editor Siddharth Varadarajan among others. The case was adjourned to October 16 after another lawyer told the court that Shah’s lawyer SV Raju was busy in the high court.

Shah said he was given “unreasonable time to respond” and no further inquiry based on his response was made, a report in The Hindu said. Shah is yet to file the Rs 100 crore civil defamation case as he had promised to earlier.

Shah had filed a criminal defamation case on October 9, a day after the report was published on the website highlighting the massive change in the turnover of Shah’s company, Temple Enterprise Private Ltd. Based on documents filed with the Registrar of Companies, the story had drawn attention to the fact that the company revenue had grown from Rs 50,000 in 2014-2015 to Rs 80.5 crore in 2015-2016.

While Union Railway Minister Piyush Goyal defended Shah, the opposition  Congress and the Aam Aadmi Party have demanded an investigation. Shah had also got Rs 10 crore plus as an unsecured loan to set up a windmill without any experience in the sector, Congress leader Kapil Sibal said.