The Indian National Congress, and Congress leaders Jairam Ramesh, Pawan Khera and Netta D’Souza were on Sunday recipients of a legal notice issued by Union Minister Smriti Irani, demanding an apology for the “baseless and false allegations” directed at the Minister and her daughter, Zoish Irani.
Ms. Irani had announced that she would be sending out the notice in a statement issued on Saturday, the day Congress came out with allegations about the Minister’s 18-year-old daughter running a restaurant in Goa for which a bar licence was acquired illegally. In the absence of “an unconditional and unequivocal apology” and withdrawal of allegations, the notice warned the recipients of civil and criminal proceedings.
Zoish Irani has never applied for any licence for “running” any bar or for any business enterprise, it said, asserting that she has not been served with any show-cause notice from the Excise Department in Goa as alleged by the Congress leaders, it said. These allegations have been made with the knowledge of their falsity or at least in careless disregard of the truth, it added.
