Delhi High Court directs transfer of Vivek Doval defamation case from Special MP/MLA Court to Patiala House

The Delhi High Court today issued directions for the transfer of Vivek Doval's defamation complaint against The Caravan from the Special MP/MLA Court, Rouse Avenue Court to Patiala House Court (Vivek Doval vs Jairam Ramesh & Ors)..The order was passed by a Single Judge Bench of Justice Mukta Gupta in a transfer petition filed in the defamation case. .Appearing for Doval, Advocate Sonam Gupta informed the Court that the case against Member of Parliament Jairam Ramesh was compounded in December last year. .Therefore, Gupta prayed that the defamation case be transferred from the Special MP/MLA Court, Rouse Avenue Court to Patiala House Court, which has jurisdiction over the Tughlaq Road Police Station. The remaining accused in the complaint where private parties, she added. .In view of the submissions, the Court directed that the matter be placed before the District & Sessions Judge, Patiala House Court for its transfer to the appropriate court. .Vivek Doval had filed the defamation case against Ramesh, as well as The Caravan magazine and journalist Kaushal Shroff, following the publication of an article titled The D Companies..The article alleged that National Security Advisor Ajit Doval’s sons ran a web of companies, including a Cayman Islands hedge fund, to round-trip black money during the time of demonetization, even as their father demanded a crackdown on tax havens..In his defamation complaint, Doval’s asserted that the insinuations in the article were made “in a concerted effort to inflict injury” on him and his family. In his statement before the Court, Vivek Doval claimed that the purpose behind the article was to run a “malicious campaign” against the Doval family..The court had taken cognizance of Doval’s criminal defamation complaint in January 2019.