Saket Gokhale will pay Lakshmi Puri 50 lacs in damages for mala fide tweets, Delhi HC refuses to recall order in defamation suit
The Delhi High Court on Friday dismissed Trinamool Congress (TMC) Member of Parliament, Saket Gokhale’s plea seeking recall of an order passed on April 24, 2025 that directed him to apologise and pay INR 50 lakh in damages to Lakshmi Puri in a defamation case.
The bench of Justice Purushaindra Kumar Kaurav, who pronounced the verdict, also rejected Gokhale’s application for condonation of a delay exceeding 180 days in filing the recall plea. “We have to reject both the applications," the judge stated while delivering the judgment.
The original order, issued in July 2023, stemmed from a civil suit initiated by Lakshmi Puri, a former diplomat. Puri had taken exception to a series of posts published by Gokhale in 2021 on the social media platform X, which questioned the ownership of an apartment linked to her and called for an inquiry by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) into the couple’s assets.
Gokhale, in his recall plea, contended that the July order was passed ex parte without affording him an opportunity to be heard. He submitted that although he had engaged legal counsel to represent him, the lawyer ceased appearances without informing him, while he remained under the impression that the case was being duly contested. He further claimed that he was unable to monitor the proceedings personally due to his involvement in multiple cases in Gujarat and was never served with formal notice regarding his counsel’s absence.
The application also stated that the contentious posts were deleted on the very first date of hearing and that Gokhale lacked adequate financial resources to engage legal representation to challenge the order or file a recall application within the statutory period.
Senior advocate Maninder Singh, appearing on behalf of Lakshmi Puri, argued that Gokhale had wilfully defied the court’s earlier directive and failed to provide any substantive explanation for his non-compliance.
The dismissal followed the recent direction issued by the bench of Justice Manmeet Pritam Singh Arora on April 22, ordering attachment of a portion of Gokhale’s parliamentary salary due to his continued failure to comply with the July 2023 order. That bench noted that the parliamentarian had not presented a reasonable explanation for non-compliance.
During the proceedings, Gokhale had indicated a willingness to amicably settle the dispute with Puri. However, her counsel declined the offer, asserting that the defamatory statements were baseless and had caused unwarranted harm to her reputation.
Background
The defamation suit filed by Puri against Gohkale for his series of tweets raising questions about how she could have bought a house for 1.6 million Swiss Francs in Geneva in 2006.
“Maliciously motivated, laced with canards and entail deliberate twisting of facts in order to cause reputational damage and irrevocable harm," Ms. Puri Claimed in Court.
She said, “In order to substantiate his allegations, defendant has resorted to fudging and manipulation of the information related to sources of incomes of the Plaintiff and her husband by selectively taking details from the affidavit filed by the Plaintiff's husband in 2018 for filing his nomination for Rajya Sabha and twisting it in a mala fide manner for a wrong and per se defamatory presentation/interpretation.”
On July 8, 2021, Justice C Harishankar had ordered Gokhale to take down the tweets immediately.
For Plaintiff: Senior Advocate Maninder Singh with Advocates Meghna Mishra, Palak Sharma, Shreyansh Rathi and Rohit Kumar
For Respondent: Advocate Amarjit Singh Bedi and Harsha Vinoy
Case Title: Lakshmi Murdeshwar Puri v Saket Gokhale (CS(OS) 300/2021)
[Inputs: Hindustan Times]