Sue me, not TV channels: Arvind Kejriwal to Mukesh Ambani

NEW DELHI: Anti-corruption campaigner Arvind Kejriwal has challenged Mukesh Ambani to file a defamation case against him, and Prashant Bhushan, and questioned the move to send legal notices to news channels which telecast the allegations against India's richest man.

"I find it quite perplexing. If you felt that you have been defamed by what Prashant Bhushan and I said, then we are the real culprits and, if you had to send a defamation notice, it should have been to us," Kejriwal told Ambani in a letter posted on the website of the Aam Aadmi party.

Several popular television channels, including ET NOW and Times NOW of the Times Group that also publishes The Economic Times, received legal notices for the live telecast of allegations made against Ambani. Reliance did not respond to ET's queries on the matter.

Kejriwal accused Ambani of trying to muzzle the media. "It is evident that your sole purpose of sending this notice was to steamroll TV channels into subservience. Kindly do not try to intimidate the media of this country. There may be some mediamen who may have done wrong things themselves. Such media-persons may succumb to your pressure.

However, the majority of media persons keep the interest of the country at heart even today. They are not going to capitulate so easily," Kejriwal said in his letter to Ambani.

"You have invested in some media houses directly or indirectly. It is possible that these media houses do your bidding.

However, journalists working for such media houses will not barter their integrity so easily," Kejriwal said.

Kejriwal's allegations against Reliance Industries and Ambani had drawn heavily from the audit report of the Comptroller and Auditor General of India.