ORR contract: IRB slaps Rs 1,000-cr defamation notice on BJP MLA Raghunandan Rao

HYDERABAD: IRB Infrastructure Developers Limited through TRD Associates has sent a legal notice to BJP leader and Dubbaka legislator M Raghunandan Rao on Monday, May 29, 2023, for falsely accusing the infra company of murder and calling it a blacklisted company in connection with the ORR contract.

The company’s legal representatives, quoting an article “IRB can Kill to silence Activists- claims BJP,” published in an English newspaper in Hyderabad on May 26, 2023, based on a press conference addressed by Raghunandan Rao, said that the infra company had asked them to send a legal notice.

The company was surprised to note that an MLA of Raghunandan Rao’s stature, despite being a qualified advocate, had made such blatantly false, baseless, prejudicial and ex-facie defamatory statements against it in a public forum.

“First and foremost, you have falsely accused our client of committing a heinous crime of murder, even though it is a publicly known fact that our client and its officials have been given a clean chit in the case of murder of the said RTI activist by the CBI,” the notice read.

The notice said that Raghunandan Rao had further falsely alleged that IRB had been blacklisted. “Further, you have falsely alleged that our client has been awarded the said ORR contract as a result of massive corruption. However, this bald and unsubstantiated assertion by you prejudicially affects our client’s reputation and business,” the notice said.

Raghunandan Rao was asked to withdraw the comments publicly and issue a public apology to IRB and its officers. “Presently, our client has estimated damages to the tune of Rs. 1,000 crores on account of our client’s injury and loss of reputation and goodwill,” the notice said.

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