Delhi HC Restrains Audrey Truschke, Others From Publishing Defamatory Content Against Historian Vikram Sampath

The Delhi High Court on Friday (18 November) passed an ad-interim order restraining Audrey Truschke, Ananya Chakravarti and Rohit Chopra from publishing defeamatory content alleging plagiarism against historian Vikram Sampath in relation to his works on Veer Savarkar.

The single-judge bench of Justice Amit Bansal gave the order in the plea filed by Sampath against historian Truschke and others over a letter sent to Royal Historical Society raising allegations of plagiarism against him with respect to a journal publication and his two-volume biography of Vinayak Damodar Savarkar and some alleged defamatory tweets.

"In my view a prima facie case is made. the continued publication of the letter has been causing considerable damage to the plaintiff's reputation and career. Balance of convenience is also in his favor and irreparable damage will be cause if the injunction is not granted. Consequently, till the next date of hearing, the defendants are restrained from publishing the letter or any other defamatory material on twitter as well as any other online or offline platforms," the order said, reports Bar and Bench.

The Court proceeded to issue summons to the defendants on the plea by Sampath and posted the case for hearing next on 1 April 2022.

"Senior Counsel for Twitter said that if urls are provides,the same will be taken down by them," the HC judge recorded in his order.

Sampath had approached the Delhi HC seeking Rs 2 crore in damages from Truschke and two others.

The plea also has tech journalist Abhishek Baxi, Professor Ashok Swain, Twitter and Union Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology as defendants.

Baxi and Swain had tweeted the same letter from their handles.