Former Madhya Pradesh chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan, state BJP Chief Vishnu Dutt Sharma and BJP MLA and former minister Bhupendra Singh have been booked in a criminal defamation case on the orders of a special MP/MLA court in Jabalpur on a complaint lodged by Congress Rajya Sabha member Vivek Tankha.

According to information, First Class Judicial Magistrate Vishveshwari Mishra directed the registration of the defamation suit against the three BJP leaders after finding sufficient prima facie evidence for initiating a trial. The court accepted the demand for a criminal defamation trial under Section 500.

In his petition filed in the court, Tankha had alleged that the three BJP leaders had maligned his image by falsely accusing him of being involved in a Supreme Court case related to the reservation quota for Other Backward Classes (OBC) in the panchayat polls of 2021.

In his petition, Tankha claimed that he had neither filed any such petition in the SC nor was he involved in any court proceedings pertaining to the matter.

Tankha had served a defamation notice worth Rs 10 crore against the three BJP leaders. However, when they did not respond to the notice, the senior lawyer filed a petition in the court on 6 January 2023. He had recorded his statement in the court on 29 April 2023.

Yesterday, the court accepted the demand for starting a criminal defamation trial against Chouhan, Sharma and Singh.