The state’s PHED minister Mahesh Joshi is planning to file an FIR for defamation against Gudha for calling him a rapist. “I am consulting lawyers on filing a defamation case. He will have to answer in court,” Joshi told reporters on Wednesday.
After he was suspended from the assembly on Monday, Gudha had demanded narco tests on all ministers, accusing them of being involved in rape cases, and had specifically mentioned the names of Joshi and urban development and housing minister Shanti Dhariwal.
Responding to the allegation, Joshi accused Gudha of hatching a conspiracy along with BJP to defame Congress. He also rubbished the former minister’s claim of being in possession of a ‘red diary’ allegedly containing incriminating details against the present government, retrieved from CM Gehlot’s confidant Dharmendra Rathore’s residence during an I-T and ED raid in July 2020.
If Joshi goes ahead and files a defamation case, it would be an addition to the cases already pending against Gudha. He is listed as a “history-sheeter” and his photo is displayed among the criminals on Jhunjhunu police’s website. His affidavit for the 2018 assembly election reveals two cases registered at the police station and two other matters pending in district courts.
Gudha is also under scrutiny in a land grab case being probed by CID-CB. A senior official told TOI that the MLA’s name cropped up during an investigation into the land grab case in Govindgarh police station area of Jaipur (rural).
“Last year, an FIR was lodged after several people attempted to illegally seize a piece of land of an NRI doctor in Govindgarh by trespassing onto the property,” said an officer.
Although Gudha was not named in the FIR, one of his aides was arrested in connection with the case, the officer said, adding that Gudha’s alleged involvement surfaced during the investigation, after which the case was transferred to the CID-CB, the “nodal authority for investigating cases related to MLAs and MPs in Rajasthan”.
