People's Democracy

Anil Biswas Files Defamation Suit Against Congress MP & TV Channel

STATE secretary of the Bengal unit of the CPI(M) Anil Biswas has filed a criminal defamation suit against Congress MP Adhir Chaudhuri for his having sprouted blatant lies about the CPI(M) leader in a TV channel. A suit has also been flied against the executives of the channel as against the reporter who filed the ‘story.’

In a burst of uncouth sprite, the Congress MP had on November 9 told the Bengali TV channel, Star-Ananda that Anil Biswas had ‘millions of rupees stashed away in a foreign bank in Seattle, USA.’

The channel had insisted on running this ‘story’ repeatedly on November 9 without getting any appropriate rejoinder at all from Anil Biswas.

Anil Biswas had declared that unless the Congress MP tendered his apologies on the channel where he had uttered his blatant lies, a criminal defamation suit would be filed.  Anil Biswas had also offered to quit politics if the accusations could be substantiated within 48 hours of airing them.

Neither of the two events happened, and Anil Biswas went right ahead on November 14 with his criminal defamation suit against the perpetrators of the defamatory remarks.  The chief metropolitan magistrate of Kolkata has admitted the case.

It will be recalled that the Congress MP who has a non-bailable warrant issued against him, has been trying quite desperately to look for issues to go to town with.  (B P)