Clarifications, enquiries and preliminary due diligence exercise have to be sought from the available official sources before posting tweets against public figures

In the matter of Lakshmi Murdeshwar Puri Vs Saket Gokhale in I.A. 7944/2021 in CS OS No. 300/2021 decided on 13.07.2021

FACTS: The plaintiff in this matter is a decorated retired member of the Indian Foreign service and has served in various international organisations in a number of significant positions. The plaintiff had filed this particular action for defamation in response to a series of tweets levelling allegations at her by the defendant, Mr. Saket Gokhale. These allegations were in regard to the purchase of one apartment in Switzerland by the plaintiff. In a series of tweets Mr. Gokhale seemed to question the legitimacy of the transactions associated with the purchase of Apartment No. 4A, Residence Prevert, Chemin des Couleuvres, 1295, Tannay, Switzerland. The price of the apartment was Swiss Francs (CHF) 1.6 million. The defendant seemed to imply with his tweet that this was not possible on the salary that the plaintiff drew from the govt. of India. Of this amount, the plaintiff borrowed CHF 1 million from the UBS Bank, Geneva against mortgage of the property, which is still being serviced. Documents, evidencing financing, by the UBS Bank, of CHF 1 million, in two tranches of CHF 500,000 each, disclosing the plaintiff as the “borrower”. The remaining consideration, for purchase of the Apartment, of CHF 600,000 was lent, to the plaintiff, by her daughter (who was a Senior Executive in a Bank in New York) in two tranches. Documents, relating to Credit Advices issued by the Bank of the plaintiff evidencing receipt of money on 9th December, 2004 of CHF 199,334 and on 11th March, 2005 of CHF 506,000, from her daughter have been placed on record. The plaintiff’s husband was, at the time, also posted at Geneva (since 2002) as the Ambassador, Permanent Mission of India and, between the plaintiff and her husband, they were earning approximately US $ 290,000 per annum. The plaintiffs furnished various affidavits which prima facie convince that there is no wrongdoing or lack of accountability when it comes to the Swiss apartment, and hence render the contents of the defendant’s tweets questionable.

HELD: The court observed that the defendant was aware of the requirement to receive clarifications and inquiries from the subjects of his tweets and should have done his due diligence from official sources that were available.

The defendant ought, in the first instance, to have made enquiries with the official authorities, be it the Ministry of Finance or the Election Commission, before choosing to belabour the reputation of the plaintiff through his Twitter account. In the present order, the defendant, directed tweets against the plaintiff, despite being aware of the misrepresentation of the facts of the case. This, coupled with the continuing loss of reputation for the plaintiff led the court to pass orders to the effect that the defendant was directed to take down impugned tweets, and was restrained from making further derogatory tweets against the plaintiff. In addition Twitter Inc. was directed to take down the defendant’s tweets in case the defendant failed to comply with orders within 24 hours