New Delhi: The Delhi High Court Friday said it was “appalled” to know that TMC MP Mahua Moitra’s counsel contacted and tried to mediate between her and the advocate against whom she has sought restraint orders to prevent him from circulating any defamatory content against her.
“I am really appalled. You are a person who is expected to maintain the highest professional standard. If you have been in contact with defendant no. 2 (advocate Jai Anant Dehadrai)…” Justice Sachin Datta told senior advocate Gopal Sankaranarayanan, who was representing Moitra in the suit she has filed for permanent injunction and damages against BJP MP Nishikant Dubey, Dehadrai and a battery of media organisations.
The public expression of displeasure by the judge prompted Sankaranarayanan to withdraw himself from the case.
Moitra, one of the most vocal members of the Lok Sabha and a strong critic of the Modi government, is in the eye of a raging political firestorm over allegations by Dubey that she took bribes from businessman Darshan Hiranandani to ask questions targeting industrialist Gautam Adani and his group.
The court was informed by Dehadrai, who appeared in person, that he was contacted by Sankaranarayanan over the phone on Thursday for withdrawing his complaint to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) against the Trinamool Congress (TMC) leader over the alleged bribe she accepted from Hiranandani.
Moitra has filed a plea seeking to restrain Nishikant Dubey, Dehadrai, several social media platforms, and media houses from posting or circulating any alleged fake and defamatory content against her.
During the brief hearing, Dehadrai said, “There is something very disturbing. There is a very serious conflict of interest. He (Sankarnarayanan) had a 30-minute call with me. He asked me to withdraw the CBI complaint in exchange for the dog (which Dehadrai was alleged to have stolen from Moitra). He can’t appear in the matter, I have the recording.”
Responding to the claim, Sankaranarayanan said Dehadrai has instructed him in the past in some cases and that’s why he approached him.
He also said he told his client, Moitra, that Dehadrai was a member of the Bar and he had earlier assisted him in a case so let him speak to the latter to which she agreed.
The judge said, “You tried to play the role of a mediator. Are you then eligible to still appear in this matter? It is something that you need to answer yourself. It is your call”.
At the outset, the counsel representing Dubey said late last night the businessman has issued a statement saying gifts changed hands.
Darshan Hiranandani, the CEO of real estate-to-energy group Hiranandani, had Thursday said the TMC leader targeted Gautam Adani to “malign and embrass” Prime Minister Narendra Modi whose impeccable reputation gave opposition no opportunity to attack him.
In a signed affidavit sent to Parliament’s Ethics Committee, Hiranandani admitted at using Moitra’s parliamentary login to ask questions targeting Adani. He also claimed she frequently demanded “expensive luxury items, providing support on renovation of her officially allotted bungalow in Delhi, travel expenses, holidays, etc, apart from providing secretarial and logistical help for her travels within India and to different parts of the world.”
Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla has forwarded Dubey’s complaint against Moitra to the Ethics Committee.
The court listed the matter for further hearing October 31 after it reopens following the Dussehra break.
Moitra has said lawyer Dehadrai was her close friend and the recent cessation of this friendship took an acrimonious turn and he “resorted to sending vile, threatening, vulgar messages to the plaintiff and also trespassed into plaintiff’s official residence and stole some personal possessions of the plaintiff including her pet dog-Henry (the same was returned later). Against such actions, the plaintiff had filed two police complaints… Were later withdrawn by the plaintiff on account of settlement talks”.
The Lok Sabha member from Krishnanagar in West Bengal has sought permanent injunction against Dubey, Dehadrai, social media platform X, search engine Google, YouTube, and 15 media houses, and to restrain them from making, publishing, circulating per se defamatory, ex facie false and malicious statements against her. She has also sought damages.
Citing a letter he received from advocate Dehadrai, BJP MP Dubey said the lawyer shared “irrefutable” evidence of bribes being given to the TMC leader the businessman.
In his letter to the Lok Sabha speaker, Dubey claimed that 50 of the 61 questions she asked in the Lok Sabha till recently were focused on the Adani Group, the business conglomerate which the TMC MP has often accused of malpractices, more so after it was at the receiving end of a critical report by short seller Hindenburg Research.
In her plea in the high court, Moitra denied the allegations and claimed they were designed to damage her reputation.
She has sought a direction to the defendants to take down all alleged defamatory and scurrilous content, including posts, tweets, re-tweets, caption, posted on their respective platforms against her.
Moitra has sought a decree and an order directing “defendant no. 1 (Dubey) and 2 (Dehadrai) to publish a retraction and an apology to the plaintiff in three English newspapers, three Hindi newspapers, and three Bengali newspapers for the false and defamatory statements / allegations” made by them against her.
She has also provisionally valued the damages at Rs 2 crore and said the defendants be directed to pay her damages that shall be quantified at a later stage on account of the defamatory, derogatory, and baseless statements made by Dubey and Dehadrai and published by X, Google and several media houses on their respective platforms.
She said in the plea that various news reports, tweets, and videos are being run or carried by the social media platform and media houses on their respective platforms and channels, in which “wild, unfounded, false, baseless and defamatory allegations leaked by Defendant Nos. 1 and 2 are being further propagated and thereby cause further prejudice, damage and injury to plaintiff’s reputation and goodwill”.
She claimed her morphed private pictures were leaked which has been causing tremendous harm to her reputation and mental well-being and she is being harassed by social media users.
PTI