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The Ahmedabad Metropolitan Court on 24 October issued summons to all the accused in a criminal defamation case filed by Jay Shah, son of BJP President Amit Shah, against news website The Wire for publishing a story saying that the turnover of Jay Shah's company jumped 16,000 times after the Modi government took office.
The summons to the reporter Rohini Singh and Founding Editors Siddharth Varadarajan and MK Venu are under Sections 500 and 114 of the Indian Penal Code as well as Section 202 of the Criminal Procedure Code.
He told the court that Jay Shah's reply was not considered while publishing the article.
The Wire published an article on 8 October written by Singh which claimed that the revenues of Shah's company had risen 16,000 times from Rs 50,000 to Rs 80 crore within a year after Narendra Modi became the Prime Minister in 2014.
He then filed a defamation case in the metropolitan court on 9 October against Rohini Singh, the author of the story, editors, and owner of the online media outlet The Wire, Federation for Independent Journalists (FIJ).
Jay Shah and his lawyers, who were not present at the last hearing on 11 October, attended the court on Tuesday to argue the case. Two witnesses, Jaimin Shah and Rajiv Shah, were also there.
Rajiv Shah said he received the article link on his mobile phone and he found it defamatory for Jay Shah, whom he described as a "simple" person and a "man of repute" in the society.
The next hearing has been posted for 13 November.
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