Delhi HC reserves order on plea against trial court restraining publication of book on Asaram Bapu conviction

New Delhi [India], September 9 : The Delhi High Court on Wednesday reserved order the plea filed by Harper Collins challenging the trial court order restraining publication of a book titled "Gunning for the Godman: The True Story Behind Asaram Bapu's conviction".
A single-judge bench of Justice Najmi Waziri reserved the order after all the parties concluded their submission. Harper Collins had moved the High Court against a district court order restraining publication of the book about Asaram Bapu's conviction.
Additional District Judge RS Meena of Patiala House Court in Delhi had, on September 4, directed the defendants to restrain from publishing the book titled "Gunning for the Godman: The True Story behind the Asaram Bapu Conviction" till the next date of hearing.
The restraining order was issued on a plea filed by Sanchita Gupta, a co-accused in the case related to self-styled godman Asaram Bapu. Sanchita Gupta had approached the court seeking urgent relief against the publication of the book as the pre-released chapter published on a web portal was defamatory and was likely to prejudice her appeal before the Rajasthan High Court.
Sanchita Gupta had approached the court with a civil suit filed by advocate Naman Joshi and Karan Khanuja and the matter was argued by advocate Vijay Aggarwal.
Arguing for Sanchita, Aggarwal informed the court that the book was being published by Harper Collins and scheduled to release on September 5, 2020, both physically and online.
The book authored by Ajay Lamba, Additional Commissioner of Police, Jaipur and Sanjiv Mathur claims to be a true story, however, is at variance with the trial record and most importantly interfered with Sanchita's appeal which was sub-judice and where the Rajasthan High Court had already suspended her sentence, the plea had said.