Rs 100 crore defamation suit filed by Kerala BJP chief against Reporter channel

Thiruvananthapuram: In a Rs 100-crore defamation lawsuit, Kerala BJP State President Rajeev Chandrasekhar claims that a TV station Reporter broadcast a number of inaccurate and defamatory allegations that connected him to a controversial land deal.

Nine people, including Anto Augustine, the owner of the station, and other frontline journalists, were named in the lawsuit.

The suit was lodged through Mumbai-based law firm RHP Partners.

According to the complaint, the Kochi headquartered Reporter TV repeatedly aired fabricated news items connecting Chandrasekhar to a land transaction involving a company named BPL, despite the fact that he has no association with the firm, IANS reported.

The reports, the notice said, were aimed at maligning his reputation and misusing his position as the BJP State President.

The legal notice also demanded that the channel withdraw the false stories and issue a public apology within seven days, failing which further legal action would follow.

BPL Limited, meanwhile, issued a clarification dismissing the allegations as “entirely baseless and factually incorrect.”

The company pointed out that the charge of irregularities in the allotment of industrial land had been raised earlier and dismissed by the Supreme Court in 2003.

“The current allegations are untrue and have no legal validity,” BPL said in a statement.

Chandrasekhar’s move marks one of the largest defamation claims filed by a political leader in Kerala in recent years.

It also comes amid a wider debate over accountability and ethics in regional television journalism.

The BJP leader maintained that he would not tolerate attempts to spread misinformation or damage his personal and political reputation through fabricated media campaigns.

Chandrasekhar, a former Union Minister of State, fought a tight electoral battle against three-time sitting Congress MP Shashi Tharoor at the Thiruvananthapuram Lok Sabha seat in last year’s general election.

However, Tharoor scraped through with a slender margin of around 15,000 votes down from the nearly one lakh votes margin he had at the 2019 polls.

Since then the stock of Chandrasekhar rose hugely in the party and was a surprise choice as president of the state unit.