Delhi High Court directs TMC's Saket Gokhale to apologise to ex-diplomat Lakshmi Puri, pay Rs 50 lakh damages

Satya Prakash

New Delhi, July 1

Holding his allegations to be “incorrect, false and untrue”, the Delhi High Court on Monday ordered TMC MP Saket Gokhale to pay Rs 50 lakh damages in eight weeks to Union minister Hardeep Singh Puri’s wife and ex-diplomat Lakshmi Murdeshwar Puri for defaming her by alleging financial impropriety in her property purchase in Switzerland.

Acting on a defamation suit filed by the former diplomat, Justice Anup Jairam Bhambhani directed Gokhale to publish an apology in a newspaper and also restrained him from publishing further content on any social media or electronic platform on the issue.

The apology shall be retained on Gokhale’s ’X’ handle for six months from the date it’s published, the court said.

“The offending tweets are per se defamatory; that the plaintiff has suffered undeserved legal injury to her reputation which warrants redressal,” said the court, which had in July 2021 restrained Gokhale from posting any defamatory or scandalous tweets against the former UN Assistant Secretary General.

“In light of the plaintiff’s answers as regards the source of funds that she used to purchase the apartment, this court is satisfied that what has been stated by defendant No.1 (Gokhale) in the offending tweets is evidently incorrect, false and untrue,” the court held.

Noting that no amount of monetary award can truly compensate for damage to reputation, Justice Bhambhani said, “However, upon a balance of all considerations, defendant No.1 (Gokhale) is directed to pay to the plaintiff (Lakshmi Murdeshwar Puri) damages in the sum of Rs 50 lakh within eight weeks.”

The aggrieved ex-diplomat had moved the Delhi High Court in 2021, alleging that Gokhale tarnished her reputation by making reckless and false allegations about purchase of an apartment by her in Geneva. She had sought Rs 5 crore as damages from Gokhale (to be deposited in the PM Cares Fund) for his defamatory statements against her and her family.

Justice Bhambhani said allegations of financial impropriety dent the very foundations of a person’s reputation and while the damage caused to the plaintiff’s reputation by the offending tweets cannot be effaced completely, an unconditional apology is the very least that is required.

Gokhale initially appeared through a lawyer and filed his written statement but later chose “simply not to appear or be represented in the matter, as if he did not care about the outcome of the proceedings at all”, the court noted.