Smriti Irani defamation case: Delhi HC summons Cong leaders, asks them to drop posts on bar row

The Delhi High Court Friday issued summons to Congress leaders Jairam Ramesh, Pawan Khera and Netta D’Souza in a civil defamation suit filed by Union Minister Smriti Irani over.

The alleged Goa bar controversy involving her daughter. The case will now be heard on August 18. A bench headed by Justice Mini Pushkarna also directed all respondents to delete the defamatory tweets immediately and issued summons to them for August 18. During the hearing, the court directed Khera to immediately remove “defamatory tweets”.

During the arguments, Smriti Irani, through her counsel, informed the court that her daughter Zoish has no connection to the alleged bar and statements made by Congress leaders are defamatory and sought damages to the tune of Rs 2 crores.

In its order, Justice Mini Pushkarna said, “The applicant has made out a prima facie case and the balance of convenience lies in favour of the plaintiff and against the defendants. I deem it proper to pass an interim injunction directing defendants 1 to 3 to delete and remove the allegations made during the press conference from all social media platforms Youtube, Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.

They are also directed to remove the posts, videos, tweets, retweets, and morphed pictures of the plaintiff and her daughter along with the allegations and stop their recirculation. If defendants 1 to 3 fail to comply with the directions within 24 hours of this order, defendants 4 to 6 [social media platforms] are directed to take down the material.”

Soon after the order, Jairam Ramesh put out a tweet saying, “The Delhi High Court has issued a notice asking us to formally reply to the case filed by Smriti Irani. We look forward to presenting the facts before the court. We will challenge and disprove the spin being put out by Ms. Irani.”

The Congress party has alleged that Zoish Irani was running an illegal bar in Goa and using her political influence to harass Excise Commissioner Narayan M Gad, who has served a show-cause notice on the unit for July 29.

The three party leaders had alleged that the license was only for running a restaurant, but Irani’s daughter used her political clout to obtain licenses in February last year to serve foreign, India-made foreign and country liquor, and that too in the name of a person who is no more. She even got the licenses renewed last month.

Last week, Khera also said that the license procured by Zoish is in the name of a person who died 13 months ago.

“The party she belongs to and her daughter must be very sanskari. The people of your party are obsessed with Lulu Mall and Hanuman Chalisa and her children are involved in corruption under her patronage. This restaurant doesn’t even have a license under the restaurant policy,” Khera had said.

Noting that it is a ‘very serious issue’, Congress also shared a copy of the show cause notice given to the bar, and said the excise official who gave the notice is reportedly being transferred after pressure from authorities.

Reacting to the allegation, Zoish termed these charges as ‘baseless’ and said she was neither an owner nor operating the restaurant, reported news agency PTI.