Anil Ambani to withdraw defamation lawsuits against Cong, National Herald

Reliance Group spokesperson said the group believes the defamatory statements were made for political purposes

The Anil Ambani Group on Tuesday decided to withdraw the defamation lawsuits filed by it against top Congress leaders.

In a statement, a Reliance Group spokesperson said the group believes the defamatory statements by certain individuals and corporate bodies, with regard to the offset agreement between Reliance Group and Dassault Aviation, were made for political purposes. 

Besides, the subject matter is pending for adjudication before the Supreme Court, it said. And hence, it is withdrawing the cases. The cases were pending in the Ahmedabad High Court. The cases were filed against Randeep Surjewala, Oommen Chandy, Ashok Chavan, Abhishek Singhvi, Shaktisinh Gohil, Priyanka Chaturvedi, and the National Herald. On May 5, the group had reprimanded Congress President Rahul Gandhi by calling the latter’s allegations of crony capitalism against its Chairman Anil Ambani as “calumny, disinformation, distortion, and malicious lies”. 

The embattled group had retaliated after Rahul had singled out Anil Ambani several times for winning the Rafale defence contract from the Narendra Modi government.

The Reliance Group spokesperson had said it was during the Congress-led UPA regime between 2004 and 2014 that Anil Ambani-led Reliance Group was awarded projects of over Rs 1 trillion across key nation-building infrastructure sectors, by a government led by none other than Rahul Gandhi’s own political party — the Congress.