delhi high court
– Photo : Amar Ujala
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The Delhi High Court on Monday directed TMC leader Saket Gokhale to apologise and pay Rs 50 lakh as damages for his derogatory tweets against Union Minister Hardeep Singh Puri’s wife and former diplomat Laxmi Murdeshwar Puri. Hearing a defamation suit filed by the former UN Assistant Secretary-General, Justice Anup Jairam Bhambhani also restrained the TMC MP from publishing any further material on any social media or electronic platform in connection with his allegation.
The court ruled, “The defamatory tweets are defamatory in themselves. The plaintiff has suffered unwarranted legal injury to his reputation which requires redressal.” Puri approached the high court in 2021 alleging that Gokhale had tarnished his good name and reputation by making reckless and false allegations about his financial affairs with reference to an apartment owned by him in Geneva.
Justice Bhambhani said that allegations of financial impropriety damage the very foundation of a person’s reputation and though the damage caused to the plaintiff’s reputation by the defamatory tweets cannot be completely eradicated, an unconditional apology is hardly necessary. “The first thing which respondent no. 1 (Gokhale) is directed to do is to publish an apology in the following terms on his Twitter (now X), the handle from which he had posted the offending tweets,” the court said.
