Priyanka Singh
Published on: September 27, 2022 at 18:16 IST
The Delhi High Court remarked on Tuesday that the Aam Aadmi Party’s five leaders remarked recklessly against the Union Territory’s Lieutenant Governor Vinai Kumar Saxena that included no verification before the making of such statements, therefore with clear intentions of tarnishing his reputation.
Justice Amit Bansal noted the factually incorrect videos, tweets or defamatory contents being posted against Saxena or his daughter, and restrained the Party and members from further posting.
The Court held that, “It cannot be gainsaid that reputation of a person is earned after years and the same cannot be tarnished by any other individual in a casual manner.”
“The damage caused to the reputation of an individual is immediate and far-reaching on the internet. So long as the impugned content continues to be in circulation and visible on social media, it is likely to cause continuing damage to the reputation and image of the plaintiff.”
The five restrained leaders of the party are Atishi Singh, Sanjay Singh, Saurabh Bhardwaj, Durgesh Pathak and Jasmine Shah.
The court directed the party and its leaders to remove all the defamatory posts against the Lieutenant Governor, in non-compliance of which, the social media platforms shall remove the posts post 48 hours.
The Court added that, “the plaintiff is at liberty to provide URLs to the defendants no.7 and 8 of any allegations, hashtags, videos of press conferences/interviews, posts, tweets, re-tweets, captions and taglines by the defendants which need to be taken down.”
“There is nothing to suggest that the statements extracted at pages 52 and 53 of the plaint and relied upon in the tweet of 29th August, 2022 are made by the accused persons before the Investigating Agency.”
“Even if the aforesaid statements are taken to be correct, the said statements are completely based on hearsay, being premised solely on the accused persons being told by other individuals that the said acts were to be done at the behest of the Chairman.”
Justice Bansal, on the matter of the statements made by the AAP leaders about a sum of Rs. 17,00,000 which ‘has been exaggerated’ to a sum of Rs. 1400 Cr.
With regard to the statement of a contract of Rs. 80 Cr being given to the LG’s daughter during his occupation in the position of Chairman of Khadi and Village Commission, the allegations were held observed to be immaterial and imaginary, noting the fact that the KVIC has clarified about no money being paid to the daughter for her professional services.
The Court remarked about Saxena’s reputational damage, keeping in mind his constitutional authority, and also that there was no response to the legal notice that Saxena’s lawyer had sent them.
“In appropriate cases where the Court is of the view that statements are unsubstantiated and have been made in a reckless manner without regard to the in order to cause injury to the reputation of the plaintiff, the Court would be justified in granting an interim injunction.”
Issuing summons on Saxena’s suit, the Court, on 22nd September, directed the written statements to be filed within 30 days, seeking affidavit of admission or denial from the defendants.
The suit accompanied with an application for interim relief under Order 31 Rule 1 and 2 of the Code of Civil Procedure, praying for a temporary injunction for estoppel of defamatory actions until the disposal of the suit.
On September 5th, the Union Territory’s ruling party and its leaders were asked to cease the publishing or circulation of defamatory statements against him through a legal notice by Advocate Bani Dikshit.
In the notice issued, Saxena has conveyed that the party had directly and indirectly, perpetuated damage to his reputation by venting such defamatory statements to third party and spread the false narrative, as they have no material evidence to support their allegations that supports their Rs. 1400 Cr scam imaginative theory.