Bharatiya Janata Party MP Nishikant Dubey has initiated both civil and criminal defamation proceedings against former Finance Secretary Subhash Chandra Garg over remarks made by the retired bureaucrat concerning an alleged interaction between the two.
The criminal complaint has been instituted before Delhi’s Patiala House Court, while Dubey has approached the Delhi High Court with a civil defamation suit seeking damages of ₹2 crore. The proceedings have been filed through Advocate Amit V. Awasthi.
The dispute relates to comments allegedly made by Garg during a podcast, in which he described Dubey as a “blackmailing kind of person” and claimed that the BJP MP had approached him during his tenure as Finance Secretary in connection with matters concerning the Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC).
Dubey has rejected the allegations as false and defamatory. He has specifically denied having visited Garg’s office and disputed the former bureaucrat’s account of the alleged interaction.
The legal action follows an exchange between the two that intensified earlier this month after Garg publicly questioned the reported 7.8 per cent GDP growth recorded by India in the first quarter. Garg had raised questions concerning the methodology and underlying calculations associated with the growth figures.
Dubey subsequently revived his criticism of Garg’s tenure in the Finance Ministry and shared a letter he had addressed to Prime Minister Narendra Modi in March 2018. In the letter, Dubey had questioned Garg’s macroeconomic policy approach and called for a review of the framework being pursued during his tenure.
The disagreement subsequently moved into the legal domain after Garg, in a podcast, made assertions regarding an alleged meeting with Dubey in 2018. According to the reported contents of the podcast, Garg stated that Dubey had brought certain matters to him and had sought intervention concerning the LIC, transfers and contracts. Garg characterised the interaction as an attempt to exert pressure on him.
Dubey has categorically disputed this account. He had earlier issued a legal notice to Garg seeking an unconditional withdrawal of the statements and an apology. The notice also called upon Garg to remove the podcast and related material containing the allegedly defamatory statements.
Dubey’s legal case rests on the contention that the statements attributed to Garg are not merely expressions of opinion but contain specific factual allegations capable of causing reputational harm. He has maintained that the assertions concerning his alleged visit to Garg’s office and his purported attempt to influence the LIC Chairman are untrue.
The civil proceedings before the Delhi High Court seek monetary damages of ₹2 crore for the alleged injury to Dubey’s reputation. The criminal proceedings, meanwhile, invoke the applicable law relating to criminal defamation.
Garg, who served as Secretary in the Department of Economic Affairs from July 2017 to July 2019 and briefly as Finance Secretary in 2019, has been at the centre of a public debate over India’s recent economic growth estimates.
The latest legal proceedings mark a further escalation of the public dispute between the BJP parliamentarian and the former senior bureaucrat. The allegations made by either side are yet to be adjudicated by the respective courts.
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