Omar slaps legal notice on Nizam, Naeem

‘Tender apology or face Rs 10 Cr damage suit’

Ahmed Ali Fayyaz

SRINAGAR, Aug 28: Rattled by PDP’s accusation of Rs 500 Cr kickbacks in the allotment of 690 mw Rattle Hydroelectric Power Project, Chief Minister Omar Abdullah today served a legal notice on MLA Nizam-ud-din Bhat and the party’s spokesperson, Naeem Akhtar, asking them to either withdraw the charge and tender their apologies publicly or face Rs 10 Cr each damage suit in a court of law. PDP, however, is understood to be determined to fight the legal battle and prove all the allegations made by its MLAs and senior leaders at a news conference here on August 25th.

Informed sources revealed to Early Times that Chief Minister discussed the legal course with a number of senior lawyers, including Advocate General, Mohammad Ishaq Qadiri, and some of his contacts in New Delhi. He finally decided to engage senior practitioner at Supreme Court of India and former Additional Solicitor General of India, Dr Abhishek Manu Singhvi, to file and pursue a defamation suit against the PDP legislators and leaders. Singhvi also happens to be a spokesman of the Congress party.

An official press release today said that Chief Minister sent a legal notice, settled by Dr Singhvi, on PDP’s MLA, Nizam-ud-din Bhat and the party spokesman, Naeem Akhtar, for levelling “baseless, fabricated, concocted, frivolous, false and defamatory allegations” against his person in a bid to defame him and damage his reputation. The notice calls upon the PDP leaders to publicly apologize and withdraw the allegations made against Mr Abdullah within seven days, failing which he would be constrained to initiate “appropriate legal proceedings” against them, including civil and criminal remedies.

According to the legal notice, Chief Minister would, in absence of appropriate response from the PDP leaders, file a criminal complaint under J&K Code of Criminal Procedure, 1933, obviously in the court of Chief Judicial Magistrate Srinagar. He would also separately file a defamation suit in J&K High Court, demanding damages worth Rs 10 Cr each from the respondents.

Asked for his comments, Bhat maintained that he had not received any legal notice from the Chief Minister. “It is the matter of our party. PDP will frame its response after we receive such a notice”, he said. Well-placed sources in the PDP, however, said that the party top brass was determined to fight the legal battle. “Mufti Sahib is in possession of concrete evidence of what our MLAs said at the press conference. We have acquired MOU and other details involving the allotment and the transaction”, a senior PDP functionary said. According to him, party had already sounded its senior leader and eminent lawyer, Muzaffar Hussain Baig, to prepare the defence. “There is no question of our withdrawing the charges or apologizing to the government”.

Legal experts pointed out that there is no history of any damages payment or punishment to a guilty even as hundreds of defamation suits have been filed against individuals in the last 60 years. They said that no punishment was on record in high profile cases involving eminent personalities like Sofi Ghulam Mohammad and Shameem Ahmed Shameem in Srinagar and Balraj Puri and Prof Chaman Lal Gupta in Jammu.

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