The Anil Ambani-led Reliance group on Thursday said it would file a Rs 5,000-crore defamation suit against Congress spokesperson Abhishek Singhvi for making “false and defamatory statements".

A Reliance group spokesperson said: “Abhishek Singhvi has made false, defamatory and libellous statements against the group. We will be filing a Rs 5,000-crore suit for damages against Singhvi for making these false and defamatory statements.”

Earlier in the day, Singhvi had accused Finance Minister Arun Jaitley of “fooling” people with his statement that no loans of big defaulters have been waived and claimed that the government had written off Rs 1.88 lakh crore debt of those who had wilfully defaulted.

“We all know that top 50 corporates owe Rs 8.35 lakh crore to banks and out of those, three top Gujarat-based companies -- Reliance (Anil Ambani Group), Adani and Essar -- owe Rs 3 lakh crore.

“One of them had last month publicly declared that they are shutting their telecom business with a liability of Rs 45,000 crore due to banks.

“We would like to ask Finance Minister Arun Jaitley that far from declaring it as NPAs, you are trying to help the defaulter with further defence contracts like the Rafale deal. Why?” Singhvi asked.

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