Kerala Chief Minister Oommen Chandy yesterday filed a criminal defamation petition against solar scam accused Saritha Nair for “baseless allegations” and four journalists from two TV channels for telecasting the claims.
An official in Chandy’s office said the petition has been filed at the Ernakulam chief judicial magistrate court and was been accepted and posted for hearing on May 28.
“He has filed a defamation case and along with it has pointed out that there was a conspiracy behind it,” said the official who did not wish to be identified.
The journalists named in the case are M G Radhakrishnan and Vinu V John of Asianet News and Manoj K Varma and K Rajendran of the Communist Party of India-Marxist-backed Kairali TV channel.
In his petition, Chandy said the journalists, though well aware that Nair was involved in several cheating cases and lacks credibility, still decided to air the letter purportedly written by her, alleging she was sexually exploited by Chandy at his official residence here.
It was on April 3 that Asianet News TV first released the letter written by Nair, who was also present when the channel aired the news.
Appearing on the news channel, Nair confirmed that she had written the 24-page letter while in police custody in 2013. She, however, said she would not discuss its contents.
Chandy, addressing an election meeting at Wayanad yesterday, reiterated there was not even the slightest truth in the allegations.
 Nair, meanwhile, welcomed Chandy’s petition. “I plan to file a case in which I will be producing more evidence,” she said.
However, on Thursday, Nair’s former counsel Feny Balakrishnan told reporters that the letter that was shown on TV channels was fake and he had read the original letter which did not mention Chandy.