New Delhi: Observing that messages on social media generate a chain reaction which is “no less dangerous in today’s milieu than a nuclear reaction gone out of control”, the Delhi High Court Monday directed Trinamool Congress (TMC) leader Saket Gokhale to apologise and pay Rs 50 lakh in damages to former diplomat Lakshmi Murdeshwar Puri, wife of Union Minister for Petroleum and Natural Gas Hardeep Singh Puri, in a defamation case.
Justice Jairam Bhambhani ruled, “It is accordingly held that the offending tweets are per-se defamatory; that the plaintiff has suffered undeserved legal injury to her reputation, which warrants redressal.”
“The bell can’t be unrung. The damage caused to the plaintiff‟s reputation by the offending tweets cannot be effaced completely,” the court then said, asserting that no amount of monetary award can truly compensate for damage to reputation. However, the court went on to order Gokhale to pay Puri Rs 50 lakh within eight weeks.
The court directed Gokhale to publish within four weeks an apology on his X handle, and also in The Times of India, saying, “I unconditionally apologise for having put out a series of tweets against Amb. Lakshmi Murdeshwar Puri on 13th & 23rd June 2021, which tweets contained wrong and unverified allegations in relation to the purchase of property by Amb. Puri abroad, which I sincerely regret.”
The court directed that his tweet must be retained on his X handle for a period of 6 months from the date it is put out.
Puri approached the court challenging certain tweets made by Gokhale, alleging that he defamed her and her family. She asserted that the tweets contained “malicious falsehood”, as a result of which her reputation was tarnished. These tweets pertained to allegations in relation to her financial affairs in the context of an apartment that she owns in Geneva, Switzerland, on the basis of her husband’s nomination papers for election to the Rajya Sabha. According to the judgment, the tweets, posted in June 2021, insinuated that the house was purchased through ill-gotten money.
The court now concluded that through the tweets, Gokhale was “actually targeting the plaintiff’s husband, who was (and is even today) a serving minister under the central government, since it otherwise defies reason as to why defendant No.1 would target the plaintiff who had retired from foreign service back in 2011″.
The court then asked, “But was there any basis for defendant No.1 to jump to the conclusion that the plaintiff or husband had accumulated ill-begotten wealth? Or that the plaintiff or her husband had purchased the apartment from undisclosed or unexplained sources of funds?”
The answer, it said, “is a clear ‘No’”.
Puri had sought a direction to Gokhale to take down and delete the tweets, tender her an unconditional apology and pay her Rs 5 crore in damages. The money, she said, may be deposited in the Prime Minister’s Citizen Assistance and Relief in Emergency Situations Fund (PM Cares Fund).
However, the court now found this way of claiming damages “unusual”, observing, “The plaintiff (Puri) could have claimed damages and could have then disposed of them in any manner she pleased, including by making a donation to any charity or fund. However, to ask the court to grant damages, and to then pray that the court remit them to a particular fund, is not tenable.”
Through an order passed in July 2021, Gokhale was asked to remove from his X handle the tweets that offended Puri, and was also restrained from posting any defamatory, scandalous or factually incorrect tweets against Puri or her husband.
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Gokhale ‘did not care about the outcomes of the proceedings’
In the beginning of its 62-page judgment, the court quoted William Shakespeare’s Othello: “Good name in man — and woman — dear my lord, Is the immediate jewel of their souls; Who steals my purse, steals trash: ‘tis something nothing ‘Twas mine, ‘tis his, and has been slave to thousands. But he that filches from me my good name Robs me of that which not enriches him, And makes me poor indeed.”
It then emphasised the fact that initially, Gokhale responded to the allegations in court through his lawyer, and filed his written statement as well, but after that, he stopped giving instructions to his counsel on the matter. His lawyer, therefore, asked to be discharged from the matter, according to the court judgment.
Observing that this matter had proceeded in a “somewhat unusual manner”, the court said, “Subsequently, defendant No.1 (Gokhale) 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.”
On the other hand, it opined that Puri had “assiduously pursued the matter, displaying seriousness of purpose in relation to the claim that she has made.”
The court then noted that in her submissions to the court, Puri had elaborately explained the source of funds for buying the apartment. Therefore, it concluded that the offending tweets were “evidently incorrect, false and untrue”.
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‘False tweets, actuated by malice’, says court
Justice Bhambhani said that Gokhale made the insinuations without conducting a basic enquiry of Puri or her husband and without speaking with any other official source.
The court noted that in his defence, Gokhale had submitted that he had done his due diligence by relying on the disclosure affidavits filed by Puri’s husband, which were a part of public record, and that no law required him to seek any clarification before putting out the tweets.
The court called this “brazen callousness” on Gokhale’s part, and found that “the offending tweets have been proved to be false and actuated by malice”.
The court opined that it was “extremely irresponsible of defendant No.1 (Gokhale) to have put-out derogatory content by way of the offending tweets, without due verification, thereby conveying to his entire band of followers on Twitter allegations in relation to the plaintiff’s financial affairs, which are rank untrue.”
As for the impact of the offending tweets, the court took note of the comments received in response to the offending tweets, screenshots of which were placed on record by Puri.
The court found that the tweets had diminished and harmed Puri’s position in the society, and explained, “allegations of financial impropriety dent the very foundations of a person’s reputation. This is even more so if the person has occupied, or is closely associated with another person who occupies, high public office. Allegations of financial impropriety tend to ‘stick’ and have the propensity to spread widely through the ‘grapevine’.”
The court opined that in this case, the false contents of the offending tweets “would, without a shred of doubt, have found their way into the official ecosystem in which the plaintiff moves about, and in which her husband functions.”
“Needless to add, that the loss of esteem suffered by the plaintiff, even if based on utter falsehood, would have resulted inevitably in loss of social standing, accompanied by psychological distress, aggravated by the pain of false accusation,” it added.
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Gokhale’s conduct ‘less than remorseful’, says court
The court also highlighted the “pernicious and anarchic nature of social media, in this case Twitter, with its propensity to disseminate content (including misinformation) widely and indiscriminately, would certainly have resulted in very wide circulation of the offending tweets”.
It noted that Gokhale claims to be a popular RTI activist and is also a member of a political party, and that therefore, the tweets have been circulated in various political, official and non-official circles.
The court also took objection to Gokhale’s conduct after the offending tweets were put out and after he was cautioned of the fallaciousness of their content. It called his conduct “less than responsible or remorseful”.
“The indifference displayed by defendant No. 1 in the course of the present proceedings, is self-evident,” it observed.
(Edited by Radifah Kabir)
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