The authorized battle stems from tweets made Mr Gokhale on June 13 and June 26 in 2021.

New Delhi:

The Delhi Excessive Court docket in the present day directed Trinamool Congress chief and Rajya Sabha MP, Saket Gokhale, to pay Rs 50 lakh in damages in a defamation case filed by former diplomat Lakshmi Puri. The courtroom additionally issued further directions, together with a public apology on social media which should stay on his deal with for a minimum of six months. 

The authorized battle stems from tweets made Mr Gokhale on June 13 and June 26 in 2021. In these tweets, Gokhale alleged that Lakshmi Puri had bought property in Switzerland disproportionate to her revenue. He additionally talked about her husband, Union Minister for Petroleum and Pure Gasoline, Hardeep Singh Puri.

The courtroom additionally ordered Mr Gokhale to publish his apology in a number one nationwide newspaper, including that the order have to be complied with inside eight weeks.

In her 2021 lawsuit, filed via the authorized agency Karanjawala and Firm, Lakshmi Puri accused Mr Gokhale of constructing “false and factually incorrect, per se defamatory, slanderous, and libellous statements/imputations” in opposition to her and her household. She argued that Mr Gokhale’s claims about her revenue have been baseless, as she was on deputation from the Authorities of India to the UN Convention on Commerce and Growth (UNCTAD).

In 2021, Senior advocate Maninder Singh, representing Lakshmi Puri, argued that the tweets have been defamatory, malicious, and based mostly on false info. Mr Singh emphasised that Ms Puri didn’t maintain any public workplace on the time, and therefore, her personal transactions mustn’t have been subjected to public scrutiny with out her consent. He criticised Mr Gokhale for not verifying the information earlier than making public allegations, describing his actions as an assault on Puri’s integrity.

However, Mr Gokhale’s counsel, Advocate Sarim Naved, contended that as a citizen, Mr Gokhale had the proper to query the property of public figures. Naved argued that the involvement of public cash justified Mr Gokhale’s scrutiny of the transactions.