In what came as a big victory for BJP Union Minister Smriti Irani, the Delhi High Court quashed the summons issued against her concerning a defamation complaint filed against her by Congress leader Sanjay Nirupam. On December 19, 2018, Justice R K Gauba passed two separate verdicts on the two leaders plea. In 2015, the court had suggested that the two leaders look for a compromise or settlement.
In 2012, Sanjay Nirupam had sent a legal notice to Irani demanding that she makes a public apology over the war of words that the two politicians indulged in during the television debate. In January 2013, Nirupam’s cross-defamation case against her came after Irani filed a defamation case against him the same month, over a sleuth of indecent remarks made by him on the same television debate.
Nirupam had filed a similar plea aiming to quash summons against him in the defamation case filed by Irani. However, the Delhi High Court quashed it and the defamation case against him shall continue on its course. He had challenged the Magisterial Court’s order summoning him on March 11, 2013.
In her plea, Irani had sought quashing of the summons issued to her by a trial court on June 6, 2014, concerning Nirupam’s defamation case. Smriti Irani had filed a defamation case against Sanjay Nirupam. When Smriti Irani appeared before the Delhi’s Patiala House Court along with the accused Congress leader, she claimed that that the accused had made one more derogatory remark against her in the court when he said, “Iss aurat ko Supreme Court jaane ka shauk hai (this lady is fond of going to the Supreme Court).”
In the television debate, the Congress leader was seen losing his temper, saying that Smriti Irani was too new to politics to be commenting on it and that she had only just been dancing on television. Quoting him from the debate, “Kal tak toh television pe thumke laga rahin this aap, aaj neta ban gayin”. He repeated the line several times and got into a war of words with the female BJP leader.
This remarked had irked several BJP leaders as well as women in general, especially in the wake of heightened tensions that embered after the horrific Nirbhaya Rape Case took place in December 2012.
Smriti Irani has been at the receiving end of liberal media’s fake news war countless times and she has constantly brazened out such defamation attempts and have always emerged vindicated.