In her appeal, the appellant claimed that the author had divulged certain confidential information that was shared by the appellant with him in confidence while he was the coach of the Indian Hockey team. (Twitter @SjoerdMarijne)The Delhi High Court on Monday granted an ad interim injunction against the release of the book ‘Will Power’ authored by Sjoerd Marijne, the former coach of the Indian national women’s hockey team, and publisher HarperCollins Publishers India Private Ltd after a player, Gurjit Kaur, challenged its release claiming that the book contains information pertaining to her medical condition.
Kaur appealed against the order of a single judge of the high court who had allowed the release of the book on Thursday. In her appeal, the appellant claimed that the author had divulged certain confidential information that was shared by the appellant with him in confidence while he was the coach of the Indian Hockey team, pertaining to a medical condition that the appellant has claimed to be suffering from.
The appellant argued that divulging such confidential information amounts to violation of the Code of Conduct and Sanctions of Hockey India, to which the author of the book was a signatory. The appellant referred to Clause 20 of the Code which states, “The Members, Volunteers, and staff of Hockey India and Hockey India League shall not disclose information entrusted to them in confidence. Disclosure of other information shall not be for personal gain or benefit, nor be undertaken maliciously to damage the reputation of any person or organization”.
The counsel for the appellant argued that firstly, the nature of the information is confidential since it pertains to the medical condition of the appellant, secondly there is nothing to show that the information regarding the appellant’s medical condition was out in the public and thirdly the author who was the coach of the women’s hockey team along with her teammates are also bound by the code of conduct and sanctions issued by Hockey India.
The court observed that there can be no quarrel with the decision of the Supreme Court that the right to protection of data…such as medical information…falls within the reasonable expectation paradigm.
The single judge in his order passed on Thursday had observed that “there cannot be any confidentiality or privacy with regard to a medical condition of a sports personality. On a regular basis, there are news reports about injuries and medical conditions of sports personalities. If the plaintiff has been playing with this medical condition for many years, the medical condition cannot remain confidential. The manuscript of the book reveals that the plaintiff told all other team mates of this medical condition and they all rallied around her.” The single judge had further observed that the book praised the appellant that “despite the medical condition of the plaintiff, she has achieved success in the international field”.
The division bench of Justice Siddharth Mridul and Justice Amit Sharma granted an ad-interim injunction restraining respondents 1 and 2 from publishing the book authored by respondent 2 or any other matter related to the said book pertaining to the appellant’s medical condition.
Issuing notice on the appeal, the court listed the matter on December 7.