Delhi High Court orders Trinamool MP Saket Gokhale to pay Rs 50 Lakh in damages to diplomat Lakshmi Puri for defamatory tweets
Justice Anup Jairam Bhambhani [01-07-2024]

Read Order: Lakshmi Murdeshwar Puri v. Saket Gokhale & Anr

LE Correspondent

New Delhi, July 1, 2024: The Delhi High Court has ordered political activist and Member of Parliament Saket Gokhale to pay damages of Rs 50 lakh to former Indian Foreign Service officer Lakshmi Murdeshwar Puri for putting out false and defamatory tweets against her. The court also directed Gokhale to issue an unconditional public apology.

In a series of tweets in June 2021, Gokhale had raised questions about Puri's purchase of an apartment in Geneva, Switzerland, insinuating that Puri and her husband, Union Minister Hardeep Singh Puri, could not have afforded the property with their known sources of income. Gokhale had called for an investigation by the Enforcement Directorate.

However, the court found that Puri had provided full documentary evidence showing that she had purchased the Geneva apartment in 2005 for CHF 1.6 million, of which CHF 1 million was funded through a mortgage from UBS Bank while the balance CHF 600,000 was provided by Puri's daughter. Puri had duly informed the Ministry of External Affairs about the purchase at the time.

The court said Gokhale's tweets were "evidently incorrect, false and untrue" and that he had made the allegations without any effort to verify the facts from Puri or through other means before publishing them on Twitter where he has over 2 lakh followers.

"Financial integrity and probity is a sine qua non for holding any public office. Very few allegations can hurt a person associated with public office more than an allegation of financial impropriety," the court said. It also observed that Gokhale's real target was Puri's husband, a serving Union Minister.

Apart from the damages of Rs 50 lakh, Gokhale, an MP from the Trinamool Congress party, has been directed to publish an apology on his Twitter handle and prominently in the Times of India newspaper within 4 weeks. He has also been restrained from publishing any further tweets or content in relation to the allegations made earlier.