'He Is Doing It To Remain Politically Relevant' - Shiv Sena Minister Drags BJP Leader Kirit Somaiya To Court In Rs 100 Crore Defamation Suit

Parab's plea accuses Somaiya, a "known political rival," of defaming him to remain politically relevant and gain some traction in his own political party through media publicity.

The State Minister of Transport and parliamentary affairs also sought for Somaiya to pay Rs. 100 crore in damages, published an unconditional apology in English, Hindi and Marathi newspapers and pin the apology to his Twitter profile.

In the interim, Parab has sought directions to injunct Somaiya from publishing any further defamatory material against him.

Parab claims in the suit that Somaiya's acts are for cheap publicity because he didn't get a Lok Sabha ticket.

"Since 2019 the Defendant's political career has been on a steep decline inasmuch as Defendant was refused a ticket to contest for the Lok Sabha elections of 2019 by his own political party in preference to a corporator of the Mumbai Municipal Corporation."

"… in order to remain politically relevant, gain some traction in his own political party and for this purpose to seek media attention by remaining in the limelight the Defendant resorts to making false, frivolous, bogus and malafide allegations against public persons, especially with those whom he harbours a personal and political rivalry such as the Plaintiff herein."

He says that for the above and other reasons, since May 2021, Somaiya has been continuously publishing and posting tweets on Twitter containing defamatory, motivated and unverified allegations about him.

Somaiya's initial tweets were about Parab's alleged involvement in an illegal scam in Maharashtra's Ratnagiri district.

However, Parab claimed that neither did he have any connection with the construction, nor had any statutory body issued a notice to him in that regard.

"The Defendant is aware that making tall but false allegations of a reckless nature with scant disregard to verification of facts, attracts media attention," the plea further states.

The Minister claims that he is filing the suit has he received no response to the defamation notice he sent the BJP leader asking him to pull down the alleged defamatory content.

Case Title: Anil Parab v. Kirit Somaiya