CHENNAI: A City Sessions court on Thursday directed DMDK founder Vijayakant to appear before it on 21 January 2015 in connection with a defamation case.
On 28 November, State Milk and Dairy Minister B V Ramana moved I Additional Sessions Court, Chennai, with a criminal defamation petition against Vijayakant. According to him, Vijayakant made a statement on November 10 alleging large-scale corruption behind the price rise of milk and had sought a white paper on the issue. This, Ramana said, was frivolous, untrue and baseless.
The minister said the price rise came into effect on November 1 and overall milk procurement during that period was 20.64 lakh litres. But it had substantially increased to 24.88 lakh litres by November 23. He contended that the increase in procurement proved that price rise had led to an increase in production of milk in the State, which is in contrary to the statement made by the DMDK leader.
When the petition came up, S Malathy, judge, I Additional Sessions Court, issued summons to the DMDK leader to appear before the court on 21 January.