Delhi HC directs activist Saket Gokhale to remove tweet against Lakshmi Puri

Lakshmi Puri is the wife of Union Minister Hardeep S Puri

The Delhi High Court on Tuesday directed activist Saket Gokhale to delete immediately all "defamatory" tweets against former United Nations Assistant Secretary-General Lakshmi Puri, saying desecrating a public figure has become a child's play in social media.

A series of tweets, posted between June 13 and June 23, 2021, appeared to have been "actuated by a clear desire to target her and her husband," Union Minister Hardeep Puri, (both 1974 batch IFS officers) "for reasons which seem, at the very least, to be recondite", it said.

Justice C Hari Shankar said in the age of social media, desecration of the reputation of a public figure has become child’s play. All that is needed is the opening of a social media account and, thereafter, the posting of messages on the account.

"Reputations, nourished and nurtured over years of selfless service and toil may crumble in an instant; one thoughtless barb is sufficient," the court said.

Acting on a plea by Puri, former Assistant Secretary-General at the United States, against "false and factually incorrect, per-se defamatory, slanderous and libelous statements about the her", the court said it was incumbent on Gokhale to carry out a preliminary due diligence exercise.

It restrained Gokhale, a Congress party sympathiser, from posting any defamatory or scandalous or factually incorrect tweet against Puri or her husband.

If Gokhale failed to delete those tweets within 24 hours, the court directed Twitter to take down those tweets accusing Puri of buying a flat in Switzerland from unknown sources and seeking an inquiry into the matter.

After going through records by Puri, the court noted there has been complete disclosure regarding the purchase of the Swiss apartment, its value, as well as the loans taken from the UBS Bank for the purchase.

"I am unable to find, prima facie, even a scintilla of impropriety, or lack of transparency, either in the purchase of the apartment, or in the disclosures made to the statutory authorities in that regard, either by the plaintiff or by her husband," the judge said.

The court said the present case was an instance in point to show that social media, for all its unquestionable and undeniable benefits, as well as its indispensability in modern times, comes with its own sordid sequelae.

"The exponential fashion in which social media platforms have evolved, has provided fertile soil for the growth and mushrooming of this unfortunate human tendency (of indulging in vitriolic criticism)," the bench said.

Senior advocate Maninder Singh, who argued for Puri, contended that Gokhale was a pseudo-activist, whose intent is only to blackmail vulnerable persons in public life, such as his client.

The court said since the order was being passed at an incipient stage, on the stay application, and the suit was yet to be tried, it would not wish to express any final opinion on this aspect.