HC directs Saket Gokhale to pay Rs 5 mn as damages to wife of Hardeep Puri

The Delhi High Court on Monday directed Trinamool Congress (TMC) MP Saket Gokhale to pay Rs 50 lakh as damages to former diplomat and wife of Cabinet Minister Hardeep Singh Puri, Lakshmi Puri, in a 2021 defamatory tweets case.

The suit filed by Lakshmi Puri sought damages of Rs 5 crore to be deposited in the PM Cares Fund. The court said this prayer was not tenable.

"This is an unusual way of claiming damages....The plaintiff (Lakshmi Puri) could have claimed damages and could have then disposed of them in any manner she pleased, including by making a donation to any charity or fund. However, to ask the court to grant damages, and to then pray that the court remit them to a particular fund is not tenable," the order said.

The court further said that "no amount of monetary award can truly compensate for damage to reputation, however upon a balance of all considerations, defendant No. 1 (Gokhale) is directed to pay to the plaintiff damages in the sum of Rs 50 lakh within eight weeks."

Justice Anup Jairam Bhambhani has also directed Gokhale to publish an apology in The Times of India newspaper and on his X handle within the same timeframe.

Saket Gokhale had alleged that Lakshmi Puri had purchased certain property in Switzerland disproportionate to her income.

Puri's plea said that Gokhale falsely claimed that her income could have only been Rs 10-12 lakh as she was on deputation from the Government of India to the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD).

In 2021, the Court had granted relief to Puri and directed Gokhale to remove the allegedly defamatory tweets. He was also restrained from posting any defamatory content against the Puris.

The High Court on Monday observed that "messages on social media generate a social media chain reaction as it were, which is no less dangerous in today’s milieu than a nuclear reaction gone out of control."

It held that the "offending tweets are per se defamatory; that the plaintiff has suffered undeserved legal injury to her reputation, which warrants redressal."

"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. Even a rumour about financial impropriety taints a person's good name," the order said.