Mumbai court issues bailable warrant against Sena MP Sanjay Raut

A Mumbai court on Monday issued a bailable warrant against Shiv Sena MP Sanjay Raut in a defamation complaint filed by BJP leader Kirit Somaiya’s wife.

Raut was supposed to appear before the metropolitan magistrate court at Mazgaon in connection with the defamation case filed by Medha Somaiya, but he didn’t.

On May 18, Medha Somaiya had filed a criminal defamation complaint against Raut over his allegations of her being involved in a ₹100 crore ‘toilet scam’.

In her complaint, she said that the allegations levelled by Raut were baseless and completely defamatory in nature.

“The statements made by the accused to the media are per se defamatory. The statements have been made to malign my character in the eyes of the general public,” she said in the complaint.

In her complaint, Medha Somaiya said she came across an article in Sena mouthpiece Saamna wherein she was accused of building unauthorised toilets by cutting mangroves without getting necessary permissions from environmental authorities. The Saamna article alleges that she was involved in a scam worth ₹100 crore and the then Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation chief Iqbal Singh Chahal submitted a report to the then Maha Vikas Aghadi government.

She had also sought directions from the court to ask Raut to deposit ₹100 crore in the chief minister’s relief fund or any other fund which is deemed right by the court and retract the article and published an unqualified apology to her on the front page of the Sena newspaper.