Jamshedpur, April 25 . Jharkhand health minister and Jamshedpur West MLA Banna Gupta has filed a defamation suit against Jamshedpur East MLA and former Jharkhand government minister Saryu Rai in Jamshedpur civil court on Monday.
This matter is related to the Covid incentive amount. MLA Saryu Rai had alleged that Minister Banna Gupta himself and 59 employees of his treasury took an additional amount of one month’s salary as Covid incentive amount. However, on the very next day, Saryu’s statement came that due to server failure of Doranda Treasury, the amount of Minister Banna Gupta and six others could not be released on March 30.
After this Banna Gupta’s statement came that he and his employees would return the incentive amount.
Against this, on April 19, Banna Gupta, through advocate Sanjay Mishra, had sent a notice to MLA Saryu Rai, asking him to publicly apologize within three days for tarnishing the image of the minister by making misrepresentations, failing which he would seek legal recourse.
A case has been registered against Saryu in CJM Court under sections 499 and 500 of the Indian Penal Code. Giving information about this, the Health Minister’s press advisor cum personal assistant Sanjay Thakur informed that Banna Gupta has filed a complaint on Monday against false, misleading and baseless allegations.
It is worth mentioning that Saryu Roy had accused Minister Banna Gupta for the alleged irregularities in the incentive amount, while the Health Department issued a press release and clarified that there was no financial irregularity in the matter and action was taken as per the rules.
In this case, Minister Banna Gupta also presented the entire process with certified documents through press conference and clarified the situation.
It is to be known that on this matter, Saryu Roy wrote a letter to Chief Minister Hemant Soren on 22 April, in which it was asked that the Chief Minister should sack the Health Minister. The text of the letter is as follows, minister cell of the Health Department has engaged in suspicious and conspiratorial activities to cover up the mistakes made in payment of Covid incentive amount.