BBC will get Indian courtroom summons over doco defamation case

India’s Delhi Excessive Court docket has issued a summons to British broadcaster BBC in a defamation case over its documentary on Prime Minister Narendra Modi that questioned his management through the 2002 Gujarat riots.

The go well with was filed on the premise that the documentary “maliciously defamed India”, stated Siddharth Sharma, an advocate for Gujarat-based non-profit Justice on Trial that filed the go well with.

Sharma stated the courtroom issued a summons to the BBC on Monday with the subsequent listening to set for September 23.

Relations between India and Britain have soured after the documentary and a “breach of safety” incident on the Indian Excessive Fee in March, at a time when they’re struggling to make progress in free commerce talks.

India reacted angrily to the documentary, India: the Modi Query, which aired in January, calling it a biased “propaganda piece” and blocked sharing of any clips from it on social media.

Tax officers inspected the workplaces of the BBC in Delhi and Mumbai in February and the monetary crime company opened an investigation into the broadcaster in April for alleged violations of international alternate guidelines.

Throughout a go to in March, British International Minister James Cleverly raised the problem of tax searches on the BBC’s workplaces along with his Indian counterpart.

An Indian authorities supply stated he was instructed in response that “all entities in India should comply absolutely with related legal guidelines”.

The BBC didn’t instantly reply to a request for touch upon the defamation case.

It has beforehand stated it stood by its reporting for the documentary, which was not aired in India, and that it “doesn’t have an agenda”.

The documentary centered on Modi’s management as chief minister of the western state of Gujarat throughout riots in 2002 during which not less than 1000 folks had been killed, most of them Muslims.

Activists put the toll at greater than twice that quantity.

Modi has denied accusations that he didn’t do sufficient to cease the riots and a Supreme Court docket-ordered investigation discovered no proof to prosecute him.

A petition searching for a contemporary investigation was dismissed by the Supreme Court docket final 12 months.

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