A Guwahati-based activist has filed a Rs 1 crore defamation case against former Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi over “false, baseless and defamatory allegations” against him in the retired judge's autobiography.
Aabhijeet Sharma, the NGO Assam Public Works' chief whose petition in the Supreme Court led to the update of the 1951 National Register of Citizens (NRC) in Assam, has also sought an injunction to restrain further publication of Gogoi’s Justice for the Judge — An Autobiography or the omission of the contentious portion. Gogoi is now a Rajya Sabha MP.
“The applicant is a reputed person... and the statements of the opposite party no. 1 (Gogoi) in his autobiography has caused damage to the reputation of the applicant to the tune of Rs 1,00,00,000 only for which the opposite party no. 1 is liable to compensate the applicant,” Sharma’s petition said.
Admitting Sharma’s petition, the court of the Kamrup (metro) civil judge No. 2 said there was “substantial question both of law and facts to be adjudicated in the present suit”. The hearing has been fixed for June 3.
The contentious portion of the book states: “At the local level, personal attack on the SCNR and veiled attacks on the judges, particularly me, by local politicians and specifically by Abhijit Sharma, the president of Assam Public Works... left us (the Bench) convinced that orders should be passed to protect Hajela from undue harassment and calculated harm. The Bench passed the order dated 18 October 2019 for his deputation on inter-cadre transfer to Madhya Pradesh, his home state.”
Sharma said that in the order, nowhere was it “mentioned” there was a security threat to Prateek Hajela, the former state coordinator of the NRC, or that the applicant had “created pressure" on Gogoi to transfer Hajela.