KOCHI: Actor Dileep has slapped a Rs 50 crore defamation suit on the Times of India for publishing a report which said the multiplex he was building in Chalakudy was on encroached land.

Terming the report defamatory, the notice said the newspaper, “which is trying to find a market in Kerala”, published it without meeting “the minimum standa-rds of a good newspaper”.

The paper published the report without examining the facts and records, it said. “The defamation that the report caused to the actor’s reputation cannot be ignored,” the notice, issued through K. Ram Kumar, senior advocate of the Kerala High Court, said.

The Times of India had reported that the land on which the actor constructed the multiplex originally belonged to the erstwhile Cochin royal family. It was later identified under the category of ‘surplus land’ in revenue records, the report had said.

The notice stated there was government record about Dileep buying 92.9 cents of land in 2006 from three persons Biju Philip, Augustine Paul and Saji. The Thrissur district collector had given a report that it was not revenue land, the notice claimed. The notice said further legal steps will be taken if the paper failed to provide a proper reply within 10 days.