The Delhi High Court has modified an interim injunction restraining the publication and circulation of Yes Man: The Untold Story of Rana Kapoor, holding that the entire book cannot be banned on the basis of four passages found to be prima facie defamatory or derogatory.
Justice Harish Vaidyanathan Shankar passed the ruling while allowing appeals filed by publisher HarperCollins Publishers India Pvt. Ltd. and author Pavan Chand Lall against a July 2024 order of the District Court, which had restrained the sale, distribution and circulation of the book during the pendency of a defamation suit filed by former Yes Bank MD and CEO Rana Kapoor.
The book, published in December 2020, chronicles Rana Kapoor’s career and the rise and crisis of Yes Bank. Rana Kapoor had alleged that certain passages in the book, along with related articles and an interview, were defamatory and infringed his rights to reputation and privacy. He had also claimed that the publications could prejudice his ongoing criminal proceedings.
The publisher and author argued that the book was based on material already available in the public domain and constituted fair comment on matters of public interest. They also contended that restraining the entire book amounted to an excessive restriction on freedom of speech and expression.
The High Court examined four statements identified in the trial court’s order. The four statements identified by the Delhi High Court are:
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(ii) “The image of Kapoor wearing a medical mask and being moved from jail to jail, being heckled by journalists as he was escorted by khaki-clad police constables, created an impression that couldn’t be further removed from the arrogant, erstwhile tycoon who had built a top-ranked bank, brick by brick, before his own actions led it to cave in and come teeteringly close to implosion.”
(iv) “The word on the street was that Chopra had made calls to top management—not uncommon then for getting friends and family placed at the Bank of America (BankAm), where he and his company had large accounts, to help Kapoor get a job at the Barakhamba Road branch.”
(vii) “The irony of it was this Kapoor, who didn’t have an MBA from IIM and which BankAm had almost set in stone as a prerequisite to join, ended up running a branch where at least four of the top five guys who were reporting to him were IIM-ers and could intellectually run circles around him.”
(x) “There was the buzz that he was organizing credit approvals for clients without managerial sanction. Documents were being issued without being signed and all the protocols being followed. The expense spending on bank accounts were also usually high. And then came the final straw.”
The Court upheld the trial court’s findings that three of these statements were prima facie defamatory and the remaining passage was derogatory. It observed that the publisher’s reliance on publicly available material did not, by itself, establish the truth of the specific imputations or protect them as fair comment.
However, the Court held that the restraint on the entire book was wider than necessary. It clarified that an interim injunction against publication must be confined to the specific material warranting protection and should not unnecessarily restrict the remaining contents of a literary work.
Accordingly, the Court modified the injunction to operate only against the portions containing Statements (ii), (iv), (vii) and (x). The remaining portions of the book will not be covered by the restraint merely because of the findings concerning these four statements.
The Court clarified that its findings were provisional and would not prejudice the trial court’s final adjudication of the defamation suit, including the truth, justification and fair comment defences.
The appeals were disposed of without any order as to costs.
