Delhi HC orders Saket Gokhale to pay ₹50 lakhs as damage to former diplomat

Delhi High Court orders Saket Gokhale to pay ₹50 lakh to Hardeep Puri's wife for defamatory tweets.

The Delhi High Court on July 1 directed Trinamool Congress leader and Rajya Sabha Member of Parliament Saket Gokhale to pay ₹50 lakh to, Union Minister Hardeep Puri’s wife and former Indian diplomat, Lakshmi Puri for his defamatory posts on X.

Mr. Gokhale had in a series of posts in June 2021 questioned how Ms. Puri could have bought a house for 1.6 million Swiss Francs in Geneva, Switzerland, in 2006 with her then income.

During the proceedings, Ms. Puri submitted that the apartment was bought on March 31, 2005, for Swiss Francs (CHF) 1.6 million, of which CHF 1 million was funded by her through a loan from UBS Bank, Geneva, Switzerland; and the balance CHF 0.6 million was funded by her daughter, who was then working as Senior Vice President with an international investment bank in New York, USA.

“In light of the plaintiff’s [Ms. Puri] 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 in the offending tweets is evidently incorrect, false and untrue,” the High Court said.

The High Court observed that Mr. Gokhale was making “roving allegations” against Ms. Puri and her husband. “What is quite evident is that defendant No.1 [Mr. 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 high court said.

The High Court noted that “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 High Court said ordering Mr. Gokhale to publish an apology on his own X handle from which he had put out the offending post, as also prominently in a national daily.