MUMBAI: Congress leader and former Union minister Gurudas Kamat filed a civil defamation suit on Friday in the Bombay high court seeking damages of Rs 50 crore from the local Marathi daily 'Vruttmanas'.

He also filed a criminal defamation complaint against the newspaper and its editor Amul Acharya in a metropolitan magistrate's court in suburban Andheri.

Kamat alleges that the paper published a series of defamatory and malicious articles against him ahead of the ongoing Lok Sabha polls.

Kamat is Congress's candidate from Mumbai northwest Lok Sabha constituency.

The petition filed in court alleges that the newspaper said that he would lose, and that people were being hired for his rallies.

The magistrate issued summons to the accused on Friday and posted the matter for hearing on June 7. Petition in the HC would come up for hearing in due course.

According to Kamat's lawyer Pritesh Vyas, the newspaper ran the reports in question only a few days before elections in Mumbai. A legal notice was sent, seeking apology, but there was no response.

When contacted, Ghanshyam Gosavi, executive editor of the newspaper, said that the reports were based on people's views and complaints. Gosavi claimed that he had tried to contact Kamat on telephone to seek his reaction before publishing the reports, but the latter did not respond.