Bihar court summons Prashant Kishor in defamation case filed by minister Ashok Choudhary
PATNA: A Patna court on Wednesday issued summons against Jan Suraaj Party founder Prashant Kishor in connection with a defamation case filed by a JD(U) minister, Ashok Choudhary.
The chief judicial magistrate’s court directed Kishor to appear before it on October 17 in the case, which stems from an allegation in June this year that Choudhary paid money to secure a Lok Sabha ticket for his daughter, Shambhavi Choudhary.
Shambhavi contested Lok Sabha election from Chirag Paswan’s Lok Janshakti Party (Ram Vilas) from Samastipur (SC) constituency and won. She is now an MP from Samastipur.
Choudhary sent a legal notice to Kishor before filing a defamation case against him.
A day earlier, the state minister and JD(U) national general secretary sent a legal notice to Jan Suraaj Party’s founder after he alleged that the former purchased land worth Rs 200 crore.
Sanjay Jaiswal, BJP MP from Bettiah, has also filed a defamation case against Kishor for the latter’s allegations that he was involved in a ‘petrol-diesel’ scam.
However, BJP state president Dilip Jaiswal has not reacted to Kishor’s accusations against him.
Last week, Kishor alleged that Ashok Choudhary had purchased land worth Rs 38 crore in Patna between his daughter’s engagement and marriage in Patna and also amassed benami property worth Rs 200 crore.
He also accused Choudhary’s other family members, including his wife Neeta, daughter Sambhavi Choudhary and son-in-law Sayan Kunal, of being linked to questionable transactions.
On Tuesday, Choudhary responded with Rs 100 crore defamation notice, describing Kishor’s allegations as baseless and ‘blatant lies’.
He also claimed that the property that he possessed was legitimate and had been disclosed in election affidavits.
He also dismissed allegations against his family members and relatives as ‘fabricated’ and far from the truth. Kishor had launched an attack against deputy chief minister and BJP leader Samrat Choudhary over his educational qualification.
Samrat Choudhary, however, dismissed Kishor’s allegations, saying that he has addressed similar claims on multiple occasions in the past.