APW President Files Rs. 1 Cr Defamation Case against Ranjan Gogoi

Assam Public Works (APW) president Abhijeet Sharma has filed Rs.1 crore defamation case against the former Chief Justice of India, Ranjan Gogoi, reports emerged on Thursday.

In the petition filed by Sharma reads, “The applicant is a reputed person... and the statements of the opposite party no. 1 (Gogoi) in his autobiography has caused damage to the reputation of the applicant to the tune of Rs 1,00,00,000 only for which the opposite party no. 1 is liable to compensate the applicant.”

Sharma, who had been vocal against a massive fraud in the name of family tree verification in National Register of Citizens (NRC) Assam, also mentioned in his petition to ban Gogoi’s book ‘Justice for the Judge: An Autobiography’ alleging that it contains many offensive things.

The controversial portion of the book states, “At the local level, personal attack on the SCNR and veiled attacks on the judges, particularly me, by local politicians and specifically by Abhijit Sharma, the president of Assam Public Works... left us (the Bench) convinced that orders should be passed to protect Hajela from undue harassment and calculated harm. The Bench passed the order dated 18 October 2019 for his deputation on inter-cadre transfer to Madhya Pradesh, his home state.”

On this, Sharma said nowhere in the order it “mentioned” there was a security threat to the accused in the NRC scam, Prateek Hajela, or that the applicant had “created pressure” on the former CJI to transfer Hajela.

The former chief justice of India, Ranjan Gogoi, was the CJI who passed the judgment of the disputed Ram Janmabhoomi-Babri Masjid.

It may be mentioned that earlier Ranjan Gogoi was named in the massive NRC scam for causing obstructions during the investigation in the scam.

The former state coordinator for NRC in Assam, Hitesh Dev Sarma alleged that he had caused obstructions during his appointment as the state coordinator.

Hitesh Dev Sarma was appointed as the new State coordinator of Assam NRC after the transfer of Prateek Hajela, who is currently facing a case in the Kamrup (Metro) chief judicial magistrate’s court.

Also Read: Former Assam NRC Coordinator Names Ranjan Gogoi In Massive Scam