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UK SPECIAL: CONTROVERSY
All Clear Now
Indian minister Maneka Gandhi has won a libel suit against
Indira Gandhi's biographer Katherine Frank
 When
Union minister for culture, Maneka Gandhi, won a libel suit against the
author and publisher of Indira-The life of Indira Nehru Gandhi, it must
certainly have been a moment of satisfaction. Not only did she receive
an elaborate apology on Thursday tendered in the London High Court, but
she is also set to make a tidy sum as compensation and legal costs.
The compensation figure will be substantial,
said Sarosh Zaiwalla of Zaiwalla Solicitors which fought on behalf of
the claimant. Though under court rule, the sum remains confidential, the
unoffical estimate is around £70,000.
Meanwhile, the publishers have agreed not to
further publish the allegations. Says Susanne Frayn of Harper Collins,
"We apologise to the claimant and have agreed not to further publish
the same or any similar allegation defamatory of the claimant either here
or overseas."
Maneka had filed the libel case against the biographer,
Katherine Frank, and publisher Harper Collins earlier this year in May.
While the book itself raised a lot of controversy in India because of
it's allusions to former prime minister Indira Gandhi's love life, Maneka
was particularly incensed by the allegations in it made against her and
her late husband Sanjay Gandhi, which she termed as "scurrilous and
defamatory".
According to the statement read out in the open
court: "The book alleges that the claimant was involved in the cover-up
of her husband Sanjay's responsibility for the murder in 1976 of someone
called Sunderlal, described in the book as an Indian underworld figure;
that she and her husband had asked another man Chawla to accept responsibility
for the killing and then that she was thereby both prepared to see an
innocent man take the blame and was guilty of obstructing the course of
justice." Maneka had sought damages amounting to hundreds of thousands
of pounds.
In the apology statement tendered last week
in open court through their counsel, biographer Katherine Frank and the
publisher Harper Collins agreed not to further publish the allegations
and "pay substantial damages and costs to her for the injury done
to her reputation and feelings."
The defendant's counsel released a statement
that read: "May I tender their sincere apologies to the claimant
for what was by any view the most serious libel? They accept without reservations
that the allegations complain- ed of were and are utterly false and should
not have been included in the biography of Indira Gandhi." It said
that the defendants believed the information relied upon was correct,
but they accept that it will be of little comfort to the claimant who,
despite the defendants' absence of malice towards her personally, was
grievously libelled and justifiably upset by the allegations against her
and her late husband in the 600-page book.
It further added: "The seriousness of the
libel is increased by its publication at a time when the claimant is the
Indian minister of justice and a democratically elected politician of
international repute. She was equally stung by the suggestion that her
husband had murdered Sunderlal in the first place. The defendants have
accepted that these allegations are wholly false and totally without foundation
and that they must have been misled by their source."
The counsel said: "The defendants, through
me, undertake to the court that they will be paying the claimant substantial
damages to compensate her for the injury done to her reputation and feelings
and to mark the sincerity of their apology. They will also be paying her
costs in this matter."
—Ishara Bhasi
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