 "Harish Rawat, Uttarakhand")
BJP leader Vijay Bahuguna has slapped a legal notice on Uttarakhand Chief Minister Harish Rawat and his media advisor Surendra Kumar demanding an unconditional public apology from them for accusing him and his family of promoting the interests of a foreign company.
Serving the notice to Rawat and Kumar through his lawyer on Thursday, Bahuguna threatened to file a criminal defamation case against them if the did not offer an unconditional public apology for hurling the "baseless" allegation against him and his family.
Rawat's media advisor and spokesman Kumar at a recent press conference had demanded an investigation by the Enforcement Directorate into the "dramatic rise of a London- based company's turnover from 50,000 pounds in 2011 to 250 million pounds by April, 2013" when Bahuguna was the chief minister of Uttarakhand.
Citing the findings of the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists in this regard, Kumar had alleged that Bahuguna's son was linked to a firm of which the London-based company was a subsidiary.
Bahuguna rebutted the charges as "unfounded" and said they were levelled at the behest of Chief Minister Harish Rawat to malign him ahead of the forthcoming assembly elections in the state.
