After a report in a news portal about business dealings of a company owned by BJP chief Amit Shah’s son Jay Shah alleged wrongdoing, the party rejected all the allegations and said that Jay has decided to file a criminal defamation suit against the author, editors and the owners of ‘The Wire’, Indian Express reported. On Sunday, Railway Minister Piyush Goyal termed the allegations as ‘derogatory, defamatory, hallowed and baseless’. “Mr Jay Shah, son of Amit Shah, has decided to file a criminal defamation suit against the author, editors and the owners of The Wire. They shall be prosecuted for criminal defamation and sued for an amount of Rs 100 crore in the Ahmedabad court,” Goyal said during a press conference.
Goyal also said that there is “absolutely no substance whatsoever” in the story and accused the online news portal of trying to damage the reputation of the BJP chief.
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The report in The Wire said the turnover of Jay Shah-owned Temple Enterprise Private Ltd allegedly grew from Rs 50,000 in March 2015 to Rs 80.5 crore in 2015-16. In response, Jay Shah’s lawyer wrote to The Wire, “Jay Shah, Jitendra Shah and their associates invested share capital and unsecured loans in this company [Temple Enterprise]. Since working capital facilities were not available to a new business/company, interest-bearing Inter Corporate Deposits (ICD) were taken from time to time from KIFS Financial Services Ltd., a registered NBFC, to run this business. Tax has been deducted on the interest paid (TDS) regularly and the principal and interest amount has been repaid in full,” the IE report says.