Delhi High Court has sought HarperCollins Publishers Private Ltd's response on the steps undertaken in line with an earlier order of the high court restraining it. (File)The Delhi High Court has sought HarperCollins Publishers India Private Limited’s reponse on the steps undertaken in line with an earlier order of the high court restraining it and former coach of the women’s national hockey team Sjoerd Marijne from publishing any information pertaining to hockey player Gurjit Kaur’s medical condition.
A division bench of Justices Siddharth Mridul and Amit Sharma said on October 6, “…Let the relevant material be placed on record, duly supported by an affidavit, within a week from today, after providing an advance copy to the learned counsel appearing on behalf of the petitioner.” The matter is next listed on December 7.
The high court was hearing a contempt plea moved by Kaur, wherein the counsel appearing for the petitioner argued that a man from Kolkata had pre-ordered Marijne’s book ‘Will Power’, on Amazon and received a copy on September 24, five days after the high court’s restraining order. She submitted that a contempt notice was sent to the publisher as well as Amazon on the same day addressing this, but they did not receive a response. She submitted that the book was slated for release on September 21 and on September 19 the division bench had passed an ad interim injunction order, restraining its release.
The counsel appearing for HarperCollins submitted that they had sent an email to Amazon to recall copies of the book on the same day that the restraining order was passed, i.e. September 19. It further argued that a pre-order of the book was placed on September 7, which was much before the high court order and before Kaur filed a suit seeking relief of permanent and mandatory injunction as well as damages against the publisher and the author.
Counsel for the petitioner argued that HarperCollins should be called upon to purge their contempt; so that something like this does not happen in future. She further submitted that HarperCollins be asked to place on record the steps undertaken by them for compliance with the earlier order of the court and the steps undertaken now for purging the contempt. HarperCollins’ counsel said they will place on record the emails sent by the publisher to Amazon and the third-party retailer on this issue.
In its September 19 order, the division bench had held, “We accordingly direct that the publisher as well as the author… are hereby restrained from publishing the book or any other matter incidental thereto or any other matter related to subject book, in so far as, it relates to Ms Gurjit Kaur’s medical condition”.
The petitioner had previously argued before the division bench that the publication of the book disclosing confidential information about her medical condition breached her right to privacy. It also amounts to a breach and violation of the code of conduct of Hockey India by which the author is legally bound; and that therefore, the release of the book ought to be injuncted. Kaur had earlier challenged an order of the single-judge bench which had allowed the release of the book.