Pratyusha Banerjee suicide: Rahul Raj issues notice to former lawyer

Mumbai: Rahul Raj Singh, boyfriend of late actor Pratyusha Banerjee, has issued a defamation notice to Neeraj Gupta, who had claimed to be his lawyer when he was admitted to the Shri Sai Hospital after Pratyusha’s death.

According to Mr Singh, Mr Gupta did not have a Vakalatnama (document empowering a lawyer to act for and on behalf of his client) to present him legally. Earlier, after representing Rahul for almost a week, Neeraj had left his case and started providing legal assistance to Pratyusha’s family. He also denied he had beaten Pratyusha and claimed that the reason he sometimes fought with her was because he was concerned over her heavy drinking habit.

Read: I'm getting death threats: Pratyusha's last message to Rahul Raj Singh

Speaking to The Asian Age on Sunday, Rahul asked, “Is Mr Gupta such a big lawyer, who fights cases on moral ground and just because he was with me in hospital doesn’t mean he got the authority to talk on my behalf and later defame me.”

Rahul also said he would serve defamation notice to actors Vikas Gupta and Kamya Punjabi within two days for maligning his image.

Rahul said some television actors had done a “post-mortem of Pratyusha’s character”, and now he is prepared to drag them to court. “They have claimed that I’m having a nine year old son and had never divorced my ex-wife. Now they have to prove it in court and they have to show my kid,” he said.

Read: Pratyusha Banerjee suicide: We mutually decided to abort the child, says Rahul

Rahul also said Pratyusha’s mother used to handle her finances and he had come to know about Pratyusha’s financial problems three to four months ago. He said Pratyusha was over-burdened in her life and it had led her to depression.

“You never get continuous work when you are in television industry but that time your savings helps you to maintain your lifestyle, but her bank balance was nil,” said Rahul. According to him, the 5 BHK house in Jamshedpur that Pratyusha’s parents live in is rented and Pratyusha was paying for its rent, ration and the servants employed there. As a result, she ended up with no money, he said. “She was supposed to pay Rs 10 lakh to money lenders and Rs 27,000 as EMI to three to four banks. Since the past few months she had even failed to pay her EMI instalments,” he said.