In Delhi High Court, Mahua Moitra names media outlets as parties in her case against defamatory content

Mahua Moitra, a TMC MP, requested on Tuesday that a number of media outlets be removed from her Delhi High Court petition about the dissemination of purportedly false and defamatory material against her.

The BJP MP Nishikant Dubey and attorney Jai Anant Dehadrai are the sole defendants in the case, Moitra’s counsel said Justice Sachin Datta, adding that he was not pursuing any interim relief at this time.

Dubey has demanded that Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla form an investigation committee to investigate into the allegations against Moitra, accusing her of accepting a bribe from a businessman in order to raise questions in Parliament.

Dubey has claimed that counsel Dehadrai provided “irrefutable” proof of bribery purportedly offered to the TMC leader by a businessman, citing a letter he received from the lawyer.

In his letter to the speaker of the Lok Sabha, Dubey asserted that 50 of the 61 questions she had previously asked in the Lok Sabha were about the Adani Group, a business conglomerate that the TMC MP has frequently accused of engaging in unethical practices, particularly after it was the subject of a damning report from short seller Hindenburg Research.

In light of her desire to remove all defendants but for Dubey and Dehadrai, the court on Tuesday allowed the TMC MP to submit an updated list of parties and make the necessary revisions to the pleadings in the case.

Representing Dubey, attorney Abhimanyu Bhandari said that Moitra had lied under oath by agreeing to share her login credentials with a businessman despite having refuted all of the accusations made against her.

The matter was scheduled for hearing in December by the court.

Attorney Dehadrai allegedly “resorted to sending vile, threatening, vulgar messages to the plaintiff and also trespassed into plaintiff’s official residence and stole some personal possessions of the plaintiff including her pet dog Henry (the same was returned later),” according to Moitra, who claims that Dehadrai was a close friend of hers and that their recent breakup took a nasty turn. The complainant had filed two police reports against these activities, but eventually withdrew them due to settlement negotiations.

The West Bengali Lok Sabha member from Krishnanagar has filed a plea seeking a permanent injunction against Dubey, Dehadrai, social media platform X, search engine Google, YouTube, and fifteen media houses. The plea seeks to prevent these parties from making, publishing, or disseminating statements that are malicious, defamatory, or ex facie false, about her. She’s also asked for compensation.

Moitra refuted the accusations in her high court appeal, claiming they were made with the intention of harming her reputation.

In addition, she has put a provisional value of Rs 2 crore on the damages and requested that the defendants reimburse her for the defamatory, disparaging, and unfounded remarks made by Dubey and Dehadrai that were posted on various platforms by X, Google, and other media outlets. The amount of damages will be determined later.