The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) has filed a criminal defamation complaint against the Chief Executive Officer of the portal Mediasarkar.com Anuranjan Jha for releasing a “doctored” video with the intention and “deep rooted conspiracy” to malign the image of the party in public.
The video showed eight AAP candidates accepting funds allegedly through illegal means. The party dismissed the allegations saying the video was “doctored”.
The case was filed in a Delhi court by AAP and Dinesh Mohania who is its candidate from Sangam Vihar in the forthcoming Delhi elections and was shown in the video. The case is expected to come up for hearing on November 27.
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Besides Mr. Jha the party has also named two officials of a private news channel as accused saying they aired the “doctored” video repeatedly without verifying its “veracity”.
“The story in the said CD projects the AAP as a party which is merrily indulging in all sorts of illegal activities and betraying the trust of the common man even though the contents of their so called sting operations do not support any of these allegations,” said the party plea in the court.
“Although even the edited version of the CD which has been released to media by Mr. Jha failed to show any of the AAP candidates doing anything illegal or accepting black money for the party, still the CD released by accused number one projects AAP in its commentary as a corrupt political party whose candidates are ready to accept donation in cash without giving receipt....," it said, adding that “The expressions which have been used by Mr. Jha in the edited CD for the AAP are completely defamatory in nature”.
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The plea said that the actual evidence presented in the raw tapes of the CD does not match the allegations that are being made in the CD itself.
“It was found that the edited footage circulated in the media in the last few days deliberately hides crucial pieces of video and hence misrepresents the conversations between sting reporters and AAP candidates,” adds the plea.