It has asked Trinamool Congress Rajya Sabha MP Saket Gokhale to pay Rs 50 lakh as damages in a defamation case filed by former diplomat Lakshmi Puri, wife of Union Minister Hardeep Singh Puri.
A defamation suit was filed after Gokhale posted a series of Tweets claiming Puri had acquired property in Switzerland which was disproportionate to her income and also involved Hardeep Puri, in those tweets.
According to a statement by Karanjawala & Company, the firm representing Puri, Gokhale has been restrained from making any further defamatory statements against the plaintiff.
The court has observed that the plaintiff has already undergone immense agony and anguish due to Gokhale's defamatory statement. The court also directed him to publish an apology to the former diplomat in The Times of India and on the same social media handle from which he had posted the tweets, within a period of one month. The Court has further clarified that the apology on Gokhale's Social Media Account shall have to be kept running continuously for a period of six months.
Soon after the development, reacting to the verdict from the court, Lakshmi Puri took to social media and wrote in a post, "This is what justice feels like! Grateful and vindicated! This victory is not about just me alone, my husband @HardeepSPuri, and loved ones; rather, more so, it is about all those who have become victims of this kind of false vilification on social media! The bandwidth of malicious and defamatory insinuations has finally come home to account! "
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