On Friday, the Delhi High Court noted that a document circulated by alleged historian Audrey Truschke against historian Vikram Sampath does not prima facie contain any defamatory content.
According to the reports, Delhi High Court judge Amit Bansal observed that the court cannot curtail discussion on a subject by academics. Justice Amit Bansal also noted that it is not inclined to pass an order since a remedy can be sought by Sampath for non-compliance rather than filing injunction applications.
The bench also issued notice to Trushcke and others and posted the matter for further hearing on April 1.
The court was hearing an application filed by Dr Sampath accusing Truschke of circulating a document claiming to have signatures of many personalities backing her in relation to her allegations of plagiarism against Sampath.
Recently, Audrey Truschke was caught forging fake signatures of many intellectuals in her recent hate letter directed at Vikram Sampath.
Sampath’s counsel argued that many, including Ramchandra Guha, Shiv Sena leader Sanjay Raut and Pratap Bhanu Mehta, had distanced themselves and denied signing the letter published by Truschke asking support for her false “plagiarism” allegations against him.
In the application, Dr Sampath alleged that Truschke had published an “open letter” and fresh tweets falsely accusing him of plagiarism despite the fact of a prior order of the High Court restraining her from doing so. In addition, historian Sampath had alleged that Truschke has continued to defame him on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.
The historian also urged the court to grant an ad-interim ex-parte injunction against Truschke restraining her from publishing the letters dated February 11, and February 15, or any other defamatory material.
Hearing the petition, the court observed that there is nothing defamatory in this letter or its posting and said, “Everyone is free to have their views on the subject, every week you will move Court?”
Audrey Truschke’s hit job against Historian Vikram Sampath
The controversy started when associate professors of History and Communication from three universities in the USA, namely – Ananya Chakravarti, Rohit Chopra and the infamous Audrey Truschke, wrote to the Royal Historical Society, the UK making a case for plagiarism against Sampath.
In the letter dated February 11, 2022, the professors have accused Sampath of allegedly “borrowing from essays, lifting sentences without attribution and merely paraphrasing material” from certain essays and thesis dissertations. Not only do their claims completely fall flat when they themselves find required references been cited in the index, but their attempts to “dismantle” Sampath’s scholarship have also put their own academic credentials in question.
It is to be noted that on Thursday itself, while Truschke continued with her slander, the Delhi High Court ordered her to take down her defamatory tweets against Vikram Sampath within a period of 48 hours.
The Delhi High Court, on February 18, had passed an interim order restraining Audrey Truschke, Rohit Chopra and Ananya Chakravarti from publishing defamatory online content against Sampath, while the same has not budged to do so by now.