A special court in Kolkata, which was hearing a defamation suit filed against Union Home Minister Amit Shah by Trinamool Congress MP Abhishek Banerjee, on Monday sent back the case to the metropolitan magistrate’s court, PTI reported. It said the summons were sent to the wrong address.
The court, which deals with cases related to MPs and MLAs, had sent the summons asking the home minister to appear before it to the Bharatiya Janata Party’s Kolkata office, instead of Shah’s residence in New Delhi, the Hindustan Times reported.
“The court said that the address in which the summons was served was wrong,” Brajesh Jha, convenor of the legal cell of BJP’s West Bengal unit, told the newspaper. “It should be served at the New Delhi address. So, the matter has been sent back to the lower court. Fresh proceedings need to be started.”
On February 19, the MP/MLA court had asked Shah to appear before it either personally or through a lawyer on Monday morning. The summons were issued after Banerjee filed a case against Shah under Section 500 of the Indian Penal Code. Banerjee’s lawyer Sanjay Basu had claimed that Shah had made defamatory statements against the Trinamool MP on August 11, 2018, at a rally in Kolkata.
The home minister had levelled allegations of corruption against Banerjee and accused him of siphoning off money, Basu had claimed, according to the Hindustan Times.
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