Saket Gokhale Moves Delhi High Court Against Direction To Apologise, Pay Damages To Lakshmi Puri For Defamation; No Interim Relief For Now

All India Trinamool Congress MP Saket Gokhale on Friday moved the Delhi High Court against the ruling directing him to pay Rs. 50 lakhs damages and to apologize to former Indian Assistant Secretary-General to the United Nations, Lakshmi Puri, in her defamation suit against him.

Gokhale has also challenged the ruling rejecting his plea to recall the said decision.

The main ruling was passed by the single judge on July 01, 2024. The second ruling was passed by another single judge on May 02.

A division bench comprising Justice Navin Chawla and Justice Renu Bhatnagar listed the matter for hearing July 08 and did not pass any interim order today due to heavy board and it being the last working day before summer vacations.

During the hearing today, Senior Advocate Amit Sibal appeared for Gokhale and said that the apology can be published with a statement on facts that the appeal against the main judgment is pending.

However, the Court did not agree to the proposal and said that it will not be an apology if it is done that way.

Advocate Naman Joshi also appeared for Gokhale along with Sibal.

The Bench said it was not passing any kind of order today and is simply keeping both the appeals pending.

Senior Advocate Maninder Singh appeared for Puri and informed the Court about Gokhale's conduct of not adhering to the timelines fixed by single judges to issue public apology.

He said that no interim order be passed today and in the meantime, he will not do anything in the execution proceedings filed by Puri.

Sibal submitted that what Gokhale said in his tweets was a fair comment and that Puri was not named in the posts.

“I asked questions. I did not accused anyone of corruption,” he said, adding that the decree was passed against Gokhale without Puri leading any evidence.

Earlier this week, a single judge had issued a show cause notice to Gokhale as to why he should not be committed to civil detention for his failure to comply with the direction to publish apology for defaming Lakshmi Puri. This was in Puri's plea seeking execution of the decree in her favour.

Earlier, the Court had ordered attachment of Gokhale's salary.

In last year's judgment, Justice Anup Jairam Bhambhani, while decreeing Puri's defamation suit in her favour, had asked Gokhale to put the apology in Times of India. He was also directed to put the apology on his Twitter handle, which had to stay for 6 months. He was also directed to pay Rs. 50 lakh damages to her.

The defamation suit was filed by Puri being aggrieved by Gokhale's tweets referring to a property purchased by her in Switzerland. In the tweets, Gokhale raised questions regarding her and her husband, Union Minister Hardeep Puri's assets. He had also tagged Finance Minister Nirmala Sitaraman in the tweets and sought an ED inquiry.

The suit contended that Gokhale's tweets were false and defamatory. It was Puri's case that the tweets were “maliciously motivated and designed accordingly, laced with canards and entail deliberate twisting of facts”.

In July, 2021, a single judge had ruled in favour of Puri while deciding the interim injunction application in the suit.

The court had then directed Gokhale to take down the tweets in question within 24 hours. He was also restrained from posting any further defamatory material against Puri.

Title: Saket Gokhale v. Lakshmi Puri