New Delhi, June 4 (IANS) The Congress said that Spansih writer Javier Moro had backed out of a carrying a disclaimer that his book ‘El Sari Rojo’, which deals with party chief Sonia Gandhi’s life, lacked her authorisation.
Replying to question about the party’s sensitivity about the book whose English translation is yet to be brought out, Congress spokesman Abhishek Singhvi said a legal notice was sent to Moro more than six months back, in which ‘we have given more than 20 examples from the book and challenged him to substantiate even one’.
The book, translated into Italian, French and Dutch, deals with Sonia Gandhi’s origins in Italy, her meeting Rajiv Gandhi and their marriage, the difficulties she faced after his assassination and her entry into politics.
‘His silence is deafening and eloquent. If he cannot substantiate hundreds of pages and thousands of lines which are in inverted commas in first person, of which he has no personal knowledge, no documents and it impairs reputation of any person, then it is clearly defamation,’ said Singhvi, who has handled legal matters for Gandhi concerning the book.
He said if anything impairs the reputation of a living person, it has to be either factual or written with that person’s consent.
‘Moro does not realise that he is admitting defamation. In our respectful view, a person like Mr. Moro exploiting for personal commercial gains somebody’s privacy purely for money and then talking of principles like censorship and freedom of speech and expression, is worse than the devil quoting scriptures,’ he said.
Singhvi said Moro had about five months ago agreed to a disclaimer at his request in each book.
‘But perhaps (due to) his greed for commercial benefit, at the last minute, he backed out because he did not want any limitation on exploitation of this work in other media forms,’ he claimed.
–Indo-Asian New Service
ps/vd/vt
