Panaji: Social activist Aires Rodrigues on Monday during a hearing before Goa excise commissioner produced a lease agreement signed between the owners of a controversial restaurant in North Goa and a company allegedly linked to Union minister Smriti Irani's family. However, a lawyer of the family of late Anthony DGama, who owned the 'Silly Soul Caf and Bar' at Assagao in North Goa, later told reporters that the "agreement for lease never culminated into a lease deed, therefore no rights were created to the parties under this".
Irani had filed a civil defamation suit against three Congress leaders for linking her daughter's name to the restaurant. The Delhi High Court had observed that Irani and her daughter are neither owners of the restaurant in Goa nor have they ever applied for the licence for food and beverages at the eatery, as alleged. Rodrigues had filed a complaint on June 29, alleging that the excise office in Mapusa illegally renewed the restaurant's excise licence in the name of a deceased person- Anthony DGama. (PTI)
