Delhi High Court Rejects Saket Gokhale's Plea To Recall Order Asking Him To Apologize, Compensate Lakshmi Puri For Defamation

The Delhi High Court on Friday rejected a plea filed by Trinamool Congress MP Saket Gokhale seeking recall of a ruling asking him to put an apology on social media and pay Rs. 50 lakh damages to Lakshmi Puri, former Indian Assistant Secretary-General to the United Nations, in a defamation case filed by her.

Justice Purushaindra Kumar Kaurav also dismissed Gokhale's application for condonation of delay in seeking his relief.

Gokhale had filed the application under Order 9 Rule 13 seeking recall of the ex parte order passed by a coordinate bench on July 01 last year. The defamation suit was filed by Puri in 2021.

In December last year, Puri had moved a contempt plea alleging that Gokhale failed to comply with the last year ruling. She sought execution of the judgment in question. 

Gokhale was then directed to file an affidavit disclosing all his assets, properties and bank accounts. The matter is pending consideration before the coordinate bench. Recently, the Court had also ordered attachment of his salary.

The defamation suit was filed by Puri being aggrieved by Gokhale's tweets referring to a property purchased by her in Switzerland. In the tweets, Gokhale raised questions regarding her and her husband, Union Minister Hardeep Puri's assets. He had also tagged Finance Minister Nirmala Sitaraman in the tweets and sought an ED inquiry.

In the judgment, a coordinate bench, while decreeing the suit in favour of Puri, asked Gokhale to put an apology in Times of India. He was also directed to put the apology on his Twitter handle, which has to stay for 6 months.

Quoting William Shakespeare's Othello in the judgment, the court had held Gokhale was making “roving allegations” against Lakshmi Puri and her husband Hardeep Puri.

The suit contended that Gokhale's tweets were false and defamatory. It was Puri's case that the tweets were “maliciously motivated and designed accordingly, laced with canards and entail deliberate twisting of facts”.

In July 2021, a coordinate bench ruled in favour of Puri while deciding the interim injunction application in the suit.

The court had then directed Gokhale to take down the tweets in question within 24 hours. He was also restrained from posting any further defamatory material against Puri.

Title: LAKSHMI MURDESHWAR PURI v. SAKET GOKHALE 

Citation: 2025 LiveLaw (Del) 500