Amar Desh acting editor summoned to court Nov 30

A Dhaka court yesterday issued summons upon the acting editor, publisher, chief reporter and a reporter of the daily Amar Desh asking them to appear before it on November 30 in a defamation case filed by Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC).
The accused are acting editor Mahmudur Rahman, Publisher Alhaj Md Hasmat Ali, Chief Reporter Syed Abdal Ahmed and Reporter Oliullah Noman.
BTRC Deputy Director Tarek Hassan Siddiqui filed the defamation case against the accused with the Chief Metropolitan Magistrate's Court for running defamatory reports and cartoon on October 2, 3 and 8.
The complainant appealed to the court to issue arrest warrants against the accused for committing the offences.
After a long hearing, Metropolitan Magistrate AM Zulfikar Hayat recorded statement of the complainant, took the charges into cognizance against them and passed the order.
In his complaint, Tarek mentioned that the accused had published two reports titled 'Bharatio Kabjai BTRC' and 'BTRC Bharatio Nagorik Niogey Bishistajander Udbeg: Rastrio Nirapatta Humkitey Parbe' on October 2 and 3.
The reports were false, fabricated, concocted, distorted, baseless, defamatory, journalistically unethical, unfair, unjustified and politically motivated and these were not only against the complainant but also against the government.
The complainant also said the reports were published with an intention to harm the reputation of the complainant as well as the government in the public eyes nationally and internationally.
The complainant sent a rejoinder on October 3 dismissing the allegations but the accused published an edited version of the rejoinder in the last page in simple and unnoticeable column and claimed that what was published against the complainant was true.
On October 5, the complainant sent a legal notice through his lawyers asking the accused to publish the notice and to apologise for publishing the false, fabricated, concocted, baseless, distorted and defamatory reports.
But the accused did not pay heed to the legal notice and with an intention to mislead the general public, create hatred against the government and agitate political unrest, they published another satirical cartoons on October 8.
However, on October 14, Advocate Muhammad Salahuddin gave a reply to the legal notice on behalf of the accused in which the lawyer stated that the accused are honest and published the rejoinder without proposing any apology to the complainant.
Advocates Syed Rezaur Rahman, Moklesur Rahman, Gazi Shah Alam and Abul Kalam Azad appeared for the complainant.