The cross-examination of Vivek Doval, son of National Security Advisor (NSA) Ajit Doval, in The Caravan defamation case started before Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Samar Vishal on Monday, 29 July, wherein the former said that the statements made by Congress leader Jairam Ramesh were responsible for hurting his business.
The defamation case came in response to a The Caravan article claiming that Doval was running a hedge fund whose promoters were of dubious antecedents.
According to a Live Law report, Doval said during the cross-examination that Jairam Ramesh’s statements were an important factor that led to investors losing confidence in him and his fund.
“Political speech cannot be an exception to defamation of private professionals,” Doval is quoted to have said during the examination.
The cross-examination of Doval was conducted by Salman Khurshid on behalf of Jairam Ramesh and Bhavook Chauhan on behalf of Kaushal Shroff, The Caravan magazine reporter. In the examination by Chauhan, Doval was asked about the GNY Asia fund and its operations in Cayman Islands.
The cross-examination will continue on 30 and 31 July.
Vivek Doval had, in January, filed a defamation case against the magazine reporter Kaushal Shroff and its editor Paresh Nath, along with Jairam Ramesh, alleging that they had caused “irreparable damage” to his reputation through calculated insinuations and innuendos.
The Caravan had reported, on 16 January 2019, that documents sourced from UK, US, Singapore and the Cayman Islands showed Doval running a hedge fund in the Cayman Islands, which is an established tax haven. According to The Caravan, this hedge fund was registered just thirteen days after demonetisation of all existing Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 currency notes in 2016.
(With inputs from The Caravan, Live Law and ANI.)
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