Trinamool Congress (TMC) member Mahua Moitra moved the Delhi High Court on October 17 seeking to restrain Bharatiya Janata Party MP Nishikant Dubey, advocate Jai Anant Dehadrai, and several social media platforms and media houses from posting, circulating or publishing any alleged fake and defamatory content against her.
The High Court issued notices to the defendants in the case and posted Ms. Moitra’s suit for further hearing on Friday. “In view of the urgency emphasized by learned senior counsel for the plaintiff [Ms. Moitra], list on October 20, 2023,” the High Court order said.
Ms. Moitra is at the centre of a political storm after BJP MP Nishikant Dubey complained to Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla that she had allegedly taken bribes from a business house to ask questions in Parliament.
In his complaint to the Lok Sabha Speaker on October 15, Mr. Dubey, cited a letter from Mr. Dehadrai, Ms. Moitra’s estranged partner, to accuse Ms. Moitra of “breach of privilege, contempt of the house, and criminal offence”.
Ms. Moitra has denied the allegations.
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Senior advocate Rebecca John, who represented Ms. Moitra before the High Court, speaking to The Hindu said, “Essentially we were seeking a restrain again the dissemination of personal information of Ms. Moitra in the form of photograph, which really is related to her personal event and has nothing to do with her public life.”
The senior advocate said that “vicious targeting” was taking place against Ms. Moitra on account of Mr. Dubey’s letter which was written to the Lok Sabha Speaker.
“We have no problem with any kind of investigation, but the public dissemination of that material is what we we have sought a restrain on,” senior advocate John said.
“We also hope to tell the court the background of the case and how this has reached this position. It was a private dispute between two people and somebody has got vindictive and is targeting her,” the senior advocate added.
In her plea, Ms. Moitra sought an order directing “defendant no. 1 (Mr Dubey) and 2 (Mr 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.
Ms. Moitra said Mr. Dehadrai was her close friend and recently, the cessation of this friendship soon took a bitter 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]”.
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 that 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 the social media users.
