Bengaluru Development Minister K.J. George has filed a criminal defamation case against Arnab Goswami and Times Now, accusing him and the channel he was working with as an editor-in-chief until November last year of “making defamatory statements against Mr George and accusing him of having a hand in the death of IAS officer DK Ravi in March 2015”.

Mr George’s lawyer Ajeesh Kumar Shankar confirmed that the criminal defamation suit was filed before the 10th Additional District Magistrate Court on Wednesday. He said that a civil defamation case demands compensation for the damages his client incurred due to the “false and malicious campaign on the news channel without any evidence.”

“A day after the death of Mr Ravi on March 16, 2015, Goswami ran a false and malicious campaign between March 17 and 23 on his Prime Time Show on Times Now, making defamatory allegation against Mr George, accusing him of having a hand in death of Ravi, destroying evidence and also accusing him of supporting some business groups who he said might benefit from Ravi’s death. All this without proper investigation and just sitting at the comfort of his chair in Mumbai he went all out to make false accusations without any evidence to substantiate them. This has hurt my client’s reputation, who is a respected politician,” he said.