Plea to restrain publishing of Natwar Singh's book dismissed

NEW DELHI: A Delhi court today dismissed a plea seeking to restrain former minister Natwar Singh and publisher of his autobiography from selling or publishing the book which has ruffled feathers in the Congress party.

Additional Senior Civil Judge Ashu Garg rejected the plea filed by a lawyer saying, "Just because the dictionary meaning of a particular word denotes some negative sense, that would not be a reason for the court to grant injunction, just because the plaintiff (petitioner) feels that the words must have been used in negative sense in the book yet to be released."

The court also observed, "...without even being aware of the context in which it is expected to be used, the court cannot conclude that the book would be using these words in derogatory manner."

The judge also said the petitioner has no personal interest in the matter and no words have been used against him personally.

The petitioner had alleged that before the release of book 'One Life is not Enough', Singh gave several statements to the media where "indecent and derogatory statements" were made against Sonia Gandhi.