The Delhi High Court has given another blow to The Indian National Congress’ chief troll Saket Gokhale, as he has been served a notice by the court to take down his defamatory tweets against former Indian diplomat Lakshmi Puri. It further states that if he fails to delete the tweets within 24 hours of pronouncement of the order, Twitter will have to take action and remove them. The Delhi HC also put a restraint on Saket Gokhale, which bars him from posting any ‘defamatory or scandalous or factually incorrect tweets’ on Puri and her husband, Union Minister Hardeep Singh Puri.
Earlier, the High Court had slammed Saket Gokhale by saying that he should have approached the plaintiff to make necessary clarifications, before he got to the public domain. As Gokhale said he did not inform the plaintiff, the High Court asked, “So any Tom, Dick and Harry can write anything against anyone on the internet?”
Saket Gokhale claimed that he had a right to know information as a voter, to which the court asked him to go to the Election Commission to be satisfied. “Before you throw mud at someone, you must do a due diligence exercise,” pointed out High Court.
Gokhale, in his series of tweets, alleged that Puri had bought a house worth $2.5 million in Switzerland, with no legitimate sources of income shown by the power couple. Gokhale baselessly concluded that the Puris could not have afforded the down payment of CHF 5,40,000 (Rs. 4.3 crores) of the house purchased in 2006 as he claimed that the annual income of Lakshmi M Puri would have been around Rs 10-12 lakh per year.
https://twitter.com/SaketGokhale/status/1407569553954009088
https://twitter.com/SaketGokhale/status/1407569562648793090?s=20
But he failed miserably in his attempt to ruin Puri’s reputation as there is no real mystery behind this, he was only ignorant about the remuneration of people employed at the United Nations and was trying to target a Union Minister in Modi government’s cabinet by alleging monetary irregularities.
https://twitter.com/SaketGokhale/status/1407620021451321344?s=20
Puri, though her lawyer, described Gokhale’s crowdfunding modus operandi, where he seeks funds from people on social media to ‘fight the good fight’. Her lawyer Singh said this is a new way to earn money, to harass somebody who retired after serving for years.
Subsequently, Puri sent a legal notice to Gokhale and sought an apology for the same. However, Gokhale had shamelessly denied to voluntarily take down his tweets.
Read more: “Prepare to be sued,” Hardeep Singh Puri’s wife rips into Congress IT cell man Saket Gokhale
This compelled the court to take matters in their own hands, as the High court remarked that the right to reputation is a protected fundamental right under Article 21 of the Constitution of India; the court had said that while it is not restraining Gokhale or any other citizen to comment on public servants or retired public servants, the law did not permit any person aggrieved by retired public servant’s or officer’s declaration of assets to publish allegations without seeking clarification from the person or approaching authorities.
Making the fake news spreader Saket Gokhale delete his own tweets seems like a just and necessary step to put a halt to his slanderous behaviour. The judiciary’s time must always be respected and if people like Gokhale continue their heinous activities in the future, it should not be surprising to see them face criminal and civil proceedings against them.