HC order on plea against stay on book on Asaram’s conviction on Tue

New Delhi, Sep 21 (SocialNews.XYZ) The Delhi High Court will on Tuesday pass its order on a petition filed by publisher HarperCollins challenging a trial court order which had put an ex parte stay on the publication of a book titled "Gunning for the Godman: The True Story Behind Asaram Bapu's conviction".

After hearing the arguments from both the parties at length, a single judge bench of the high court presided over by Justice Najmi Waziri had earlier this month reserved its order on the petition filed by the publishing house.

Additional District Judge R.S. Meena of Patiala House Court in Delhi had on September 4 directed the defendants to restrain from publishing the book till the next date of hearing. The publishing house then approached the high court against the order.

The book is a police officer's first-hand account of Asaram's arrest and conviction. It was slated to be released on September 5. The restraining order was issued on a plea filed by Sanchita Gupta, a co-accused in the case related to the self-styled godman.

Gupta had approached the trial court seeking urgent relief against the publication of the book, claiming that the pre-released chapter published on a web portal was defamatory and was likely to prejudice her appeal before the Rajasthan High Court.

Gupta had approached the court with a civil suit filed by advocates Naman Joshi and Karan Khanuja and the matter was argued by advocate Vijay Aggarwal.

While passing the order, the judge had said, "I am of the considered view that the plaintiff's reputation is at stake and her reputation would suffer irreparable harm if the ex parte injunction is not granted, particularly when the said book is going to be published on 05.09.2020."

The book authored by Ajay Lamba, Additional Commissioner of Police, Jaipur, and Sanjiv Mathur claims to be a true story.

Source: IANS