Jailed Kerala Youth Congress president Rahul Mamkootathil, on Saturday, January 13, sent a lawyer’s notice to Communist Party of India CPI(M) state secretary MV Govindan seeking Rs 1 crore as damages, if he fails to apologise within one week for his defamatory statement that the former submitted a fake medical certificate before the court to secure a bail.
Mamkootathil was arrested by the Police from his house in Pathanamthitta district on Tuesday in connection with violence during the Youth Congress' Secretariat march in December, 2023. After Mamkootathil was produced in the court, he moved a bail plea, citing a medical certificate about his ailment. The court asked Mamkoottahil to undergo a medical check up during which he was found to be fit and subsequently sent to judicial custody.
On Wednesday, Govindan said that Mamkootathil produced a "fake" medical certificate, irked over which the latter sent him the lawyer notice seeking Rs 1 crore as damages if the former does not apologise by calling a press conference in a week’s time.
Two days after Mamkootathil was arrested, Leader of Opposition in the state Assembly VD Satheesan said, "The Pinarayi Vijayan government tried its best to see that Mamkootathil should not get bail and for that, they manipulated things." Satheesan alleged that it was done using a police official who ‘influenced’ a medical officer who gave a medically fit certificate, when it should have been given by the treating doctor.
Satheesan then said that they will deal with this "injustice" meted out to the arrested Mamkootathil in the way it should be dealt and the notice to Govindan was the first step towards it. Mamkootathil is presently lodged in a jail in Thiruvananthapuram.