Author: IANS
Publication: The Times of India
Date: January 16, 2009
URL: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/India/US_court_dismisses_20m_lawsuit_against_anti-Sonia_ad/rssarticleshow/3987452.cms
A third US court has dismissed a $20 million
defamation suit filed by the Indian National Overseas Congress (INOC), which
claimed that an advertisement in the New York Times maligned its parent party,
its president Sonia Gandhi and her son Rahul.
The defamation case arose from a full-page
advertisement in the New York Times on Oct 6, 2007, levelling several charges
against Congress president Sonia Gandhi and her son Rahul during the United
Progressive Alliance (UPA) chairperson's visit to the UN.
The case was "dismissed with prejudice", meaning the matter cannot
be tried again, by New Jersey's Middlesex County Judge Nicholas J. Stroumtsos
on Wednesday.
The defendants in the case were Satya Dosapati,
Naresh Sharma, Sunanda Thali, Mahatma Gandhi Centre and Hindu Temple International
Foundation, and Hindu International Council Against Defamation.
Stroumtsos found that last August Monmouth
County Superior Court Judge Patricia DelBueno Cleary had "properly dismissed
the case" but left the matter for open for re-litigation.
Cleary had dismissed the case holding that
the INOC was not the proper party and did not have the locus standi to bring
a claim of defamation because none of the statements were of or about it.
The INOC had earlier filed two separate cases
relating to the advertisement, one in New Jersey and another in New York,
seeking $100 million in actual, compensatory, and punitive damages in addition
to costs and disbursements, legal fees and other relief that the court might
consider proper.
The INOC withdrew the case in New York after
the dismissal of the case in New Jersey. But it later filed a third case in
Middlesex County by amending the complaint to allege that its parent party
the Indian National Congress was defamed instead of Sonia Gandhi.
However, Stroumtsos found that INOC was still
not the proper party as it had brought the defamation under an alleged assignment
from its party, which was invalid and void. Also, according to a Supreme Court
ruling, libel or slander is "an injury to a person", rather than
a party.
