Chairman of Reliance Infrastructure Anil Ambani has sent a legal notice to the Congress national spokesperson Jaiveer Shergill asking him to avoid making any unverified and speculative statements on the Rafale deal.
The legal notice comes after the company had sent letters to Congress President Rahul Gandhi on the controversial deal.
The legal notice, which is in the form of a cease and desist letter, also mentions the name of other Congress leaders including Randeep Surjewala, Ashok Chavan, Sanjay Nirupam, Abhishek Singhvi, Sunil Kumar Jakhar and Priyanka Chaturvedi among others. The Congress leaders are yet to respond to these notices. Following this, Reliance Defence has now filed separate defamation suits against them, reports India Today.
In the notice, the company has alleged that these leaders have been making incorrect, false and baseless statements in press and electronic media in relation to the purchase of 36 fighter jets by India from France in a government-to-government contract.
The notice also mentioned that Congress, as a political party, was free to raise concerns and issues of national importance including the Rafale deal before the people, media and other platforms. It does not want to curb their freedom of speech and expression in any way, however, as custodians of public interest, the party should only make statements on the basis of irrefutable evidence.
It further mentioned that Reliance keeps publishing press releases on the concerned issue and the Congress leaders should take cognizance of the same while making statements to the press.
Meanwhile, Jaiveer Shergill took to Twitter to respond to the legal notice sent to him. "I'm a Congress Soldier, a Proud Punjabi who doesn't get scared with such notices-Tax Payer of this country deserves to know why they paid extra 42000 Cr, [sic]" he tweeted.
Earlier, Anil Ambani had sent two letters to Congress president Rahul Gandhi which had stated that there was no irregularity in the deal between Reliance Defence and Rafale as opposed to what Gandhi had been claiming.
The Congress chief had asked 50 party leaders to hold press conferences in over a hundred cities across the nation to expose the deal, reports India Today.
