Delhi HC restrains several historians from publishing defamatory content about Dr Vikram Sampath, author of Savarkar's biography
Feb 18, 2022
New Delhi [India], February 18 : The Delhi High Court on Friday in an interim order restrained several historians and others from publishing any defamatory content (online and offline) about Dr Vikram Sampath, author of a two-volume biography of Vinayak Damodar Savarkar.
Recently Historian Audrey Truschke and others have accused Dr Vikram Sampath of plagiarism and wrote a letter dated February 11, 2022, to the Royal Historical Society (RHS) in London and made serious allegations of plagiarism against Dr Sampath with respect to his two-volume biography of Savarkar. Dr Sampath is also a fellow of the Royal Historical Society.
After taking notes of the submission of Advocate Raghav Awasthi, appearing for Plaintiff Dr Vikram Sampath, the bench of Justice Amit Bansal on Friday restrained Dr. Audrey Truschke, historian of South Asia, Dr. Ananya Chakravarti, Associate Professor of History at Georgetown University, Dr. Rohit Chopra, Associate Professor of Communications at Santa Clara University, Abhishek Baxi, freelance tech journalist, Ashok Swain, Professor of Peace and Conflict Research at Uppsala University, Sweden and said, in my view plaintiff has made a prima facie case.
Justice Bansal noted that the continued publication of said letter has been causing considerable damage to the plaintiff's reputation and career.
Court further asked the counsel for the plaintiff to supply the copy of the plaint to the Defendants and sought their response within four weeks. The court fixed the date for April 1, for further hearing in the matter.
The Court direction came, while hearing a civil suit filed by Indian Historian and Author Dr Vikram Sampath against other historians who made alleged defamatory tweets against him. Dr Sampath also seeks a decree of damages of Rs.2,00,00,100 (Rs two crores and hundred) in favour of the plaintiff and against the Defendants.
The petition stated that the said letter makes it clear that allegation against the plaintiff that in an essay written for the journal, plaintiff has plagiarized from an essay written by one Vinayak Chaturvedi. The said India Foundation is a respected think tank focusing on the issues, challenges and opportunities of the Indian polity.
It is submitted that the said allegation is quite absurd inasmuch as a perusal of the article in question would clearly establish beyond all reasonable doubt that Vinayak Chaturvedi has been cited. References are there in the article and have given extensive and exhaustive footnotes in the book. The relevant extract has been reproduced, stated the petition.
It further added that the alleged defamatory letter in question is being quoted extensively on the platform of the microblogging site Twitter by various unscrupulous elements and Twitter users. It is clear that the same is part of the motivated smear campaign against plaintiff and each and every time the defamatory material is being retweeted, a new cause of action arises.
