AHMEDABAD: A metropolitan court in Ahmedabad gave Tejashwi Yadav, the Deputy Chief Minister of Bihar, a summons on Monday in a criminal defamation case brought against him for remarking that "only Gujaratis can be thugs (fraudsters)." The court also ordered Tejashwi Yadav to appear before the Additional Metropolitan Magistrate court on September 22.
On Monday, the court of Additional Metropolitan Magistrate summoned Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) leader Tejashwi Yadav in a criminal defamation complaint brought against him under sections 499 and 500 of the Indian Penal Code. The court issued him the summons based on a complaint filed by one Haresh Mehta, a social worker and businessman from Ahmedabad.
"The court had conducted an inquiry against Yadav under section 202 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC) and had found sufficient grounds to summon him on the basis of a complaint filed by Haresh Mehta," P.R. Patel, counsel for the complainant, told the media.
Mehta (63) had filed his complaint in court along with the proof of Yadav's statement made before the media in Patna on March 21 this year.
The complainant said that the statement had been made in public and called the entire Gujarati community thug to defame and humiliate all Gujaratis in the public.
The complainant said he is also a Gujarati, and when he came across the news on a digital platform, he realized that such a defamatory statement would make a non-Gujarati look down upon a Gujarati as a “thug”.