Himanta Biswa Sarma’s wife files Rs 10 cr defamation suit against Gaurav Gogoi

financialexpress.com:

Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma’s wife Riniki Bhuyan Sarma has filed a Rs 10 crore defamation suit against Congress MP Gaurav Gogoi for “false” allegations of irregularities in a food processing project.

The case has been filed at the Court of Civil Judge (Senior Division) of Kamrup Metropolitan on Friday and it will be moved on September 26, senior advocate Devajit Saikia, her counsel, told PTI.

The counsel said that Riniki had never made any application to receive subsidy.

Saikia further claimed that the process to seek subsidy has not been initiated at all and for which, a show cause notice was slapped on his client’s firm on May 26 this year, followed by an email from the Ministry of Food Processing.

“The approval for the project was given on November 22, 2022. In the last email, we were told that our claim would lapse if we didn’t submit our proposal. We are not responding to anything to seek subsidy,” he added.

Whatever Gogoi stated on social media about Sarma and her entity ‘Pride East Entertainments’, that information was not based on facts, claimed the senior advocate.

“He (Gogoi) did not do his homework. Getting approval for a project does not mean that a subsidy has been received. We will fight the case tooth and nail,” he asserted.

Following a news report alleging that 50 bigha (nearly 17 acres) of agricultural land at Darigaji village in Kaliabor in Nagaon district was reclassified as industrial land within a month after it was bought by Pride East Entertainments, a huge controversy had erupted.

Riniki Sarma is the chairman and managing director of the firm.

The Deputy Leader of Congress in Lok Sabha then led the charge and was embroiled in an exchange of words with the CM on X, bringing forth