PDP refuses to apologise, ready to face CM in court

7-day deadline expires

SYED ALI SAFVI

SRINAGAR, Sep 4: A week after chief minister, Omar Abdullah, served defamation notice on People’s Democratic Party (PDP) legislator and spokesman, and sought their public apology within seven days, state’s principal opposition, PDP, today refused to apologise and asserted that the party was ready to face court case.

“We will fight the case whenever it comes to the court,” PDP spokesman, Naeem Akhtar told Kashmir Times.

Confirming the receipt of legal notice, he said that his party’s position was clear and they were ready to defend the charges leveled against the chief minister.

“We received a notice some days back asking us to apologise within seven days and withdrew all the allegations or face,” he said.

He said that by taking the matter to court, the government had provided an opportunity to his party to expose the government’s functioning.

“We are gathering further details and evidences against the misappropriation of funds by the present dispensation, which will be produced before the court of law to expose the government,” Naeem Akhter was quoted by a local agency as saying.

“We believe that assets of both father-son duo of Farooq and Omar Abdullah in Gulmarg, Srinagar and Delhi should be scrutinized,” he said, adding that the leaders of his party were ready to face similar scrutiny.

Pertinently, PDP legislator, Nizam-ud-Din Bhat, and Naem Akhtar had, during a press conference on August 26, accused the chief minister of receiving Rs 500 crore as kickbacks in the allotment of the Rattle Power Project.

The PDP legislator had also alleged that Rs 20 crore had been spent so far on a residence being constructed for the chief minister at the Gupkar road.

Taking strong note of the allegations being hurled at Omar, senior National Conference (NC) leader and finance minister, Abdul Rahim Rather, while addressing a hurriedly-convened press conference at Dak Bunglow here, termed the allegations as “baseless”.

He negated the allegation that an amount of Rs 20 crore had been spent on the residence of the chief minister.

“So far only Rs 1.50 crore has been spent out of the estimated amount of Rs two crore,” he had said.

Two days after the press conference, the chief minister sent a legal notice for defamation to Bhat and Naeem. The notice was sent through Omar’s lawyer, Abhishek Manu Singhvi, a senior advocate and former additional solicitor general of India.

Terming the charges “baseless, fabricated, concocted, frivolous, false and defamatory”, the defamation notice called upon Bhat and Naeem to publicly apologise and withdraw the allegations made against the chief minister within seven days.