Jairam Ramesh summoned in defamation suit by NSA's son

A Delhi court on Saturday issued summons against Congress leader and former Union Minister Jairam Ramesh and the 'Caravan' magazine editor and reporter as accused in a defamation case filed by National Security Advisor Ajit Doval's son, Vivek Doval.

Vivek alleged the magazine published the defamatory article and Ramesh used that content to "deliberately malign and defame" him to "settle scores with his father".

Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Samar Vishal sought personal presence of the three on April 25, after finding prima facie substance in the complaint.

Vivek has earlier recorded his statement along with two other witnesses, his friend Nikhil Kapoor and business partner Amit Sharma.

The court has reserved its order on February 22.

The complaint alleged that the article had termed the companies run by Vivek as "D-Companies", which was a very demeaning name for him and for the entire country.

According to the complaint, Ramesh had held a press conference on January 17 reiterating the "baseless and unfounded facts" as narrated in the article. The magazine in its January 16 online write-up titled 'The D Companies' had claimed Doval, "runs a hedge fund in the Cayman Islands" which is "an established tax haven" and was "registered merely 13 days after Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government demonetised all existing Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 currency notes, in 2016".