Mahua Moitra sends legal notice to BJP's Nishikant Dubey, Advocate Dehadrai over 'false allegations'

New Delhi, Oct 16 (IANS) Trinamool Congress MP Mahua Moitra has sent legal notice to BJP MP Nishikant Dubey, and advocate Jai Anant Dehadrai, asking them to withdraw the "defamatory and false" allegations made by them against her.

The legal notice to Dubey sought to withdraw the "defamatory and false" allegations made against Moitra in the letter dated October 15, 2023, addressed to the Speaker of the Lok Sabha and "leaked to the members of the media and press".

Through the legal notice, Dubey has been asked to issue a written public apology to Moitra.

"In the event you fail to comply with the above within 24 hours from the receipt of this notice, our client will be constrained to initiate appropriate proceedings to protect her rights and interests and such proceedings will be at your sole risk, cost and consequence," reads the notice.

Dehadrai has also been asked to withdraw the "defamatory and false" allegations made by him. He has also been asked to issue a written public apology to Moitra for inventing "fictious, false, per se defamatory and malicious" allegations against her.

According to the legal notice, in March 2023, Moitra questioned the authenticity of the claims of the BJP MP regarding his educational qualifications and corresponding disclosures in his election nomination papers.

"It appears that rattled by our client (Moitra) drawing attention towards such deficits, Noticee No. 1 (Dubey) has now responded by making and endorsing per se false and defamatory allegations against our Client without conducting any verification or exercising any reasonable diligence before levelling such unfounded allegations designed to malign our Client’s reputation and goodwill," the notice said.

As per the legal notice, Dehadrai was a close friend of Moitra and is a resident Delhi. "Our client shared a close, personal friendship with Noticee No. 2 (Dehadrai) for several years. However, there was a falling out between our Client and Noticee No. 2 for a variety of personal reasons and matters started to become acrimonious. It soon became apparent that Noticee No. 2 had designs to extract a personal vendetta against our Client, potentially on account of acrimonious cessation of their friendship. Noticee No. 2 not only repeatedly threatened our Client with several vile, malicious and vulgar messages, but also trespassed into her official government residence and stole some personal possessions, including her pet dog (which he later returned)," the notice said.

"In view of the erstwhile friendship shared with Dehadrai, Moitra did not immediately take any action but impressed upon him to let better sense prevail. However, when Dehadrai repeated his transgressions of trespass and theft, Moitra was constrained to inform Barakhamba Road Police Station and filed 2 (two) separate complaints in the matter dated 25 March 2023 and 23 September 2023 notifying them of all facts in relation to the matter.

"Soon after convincing our Client to withdraw the complaints dated 25 March 2023 and 23 September 2023, Noticee No. 2 immediately zapped back to old ways and continued his misguided and malicious pursuit of vendetta against our client. Noticee No. 2 reached out to several prominent journalists and attempted to convince them to run stories based on wild, vindictive, fictitious and entirely imaginary allegations about our Client," it added.