Jairam Ramesh, who is a close confidant of the Nehru-Gandhi family-led Congress Party has tendered an apology to National Security Advisor (NSA) Ajit Doval’s son Vivek Doval over comments he made after an unsubstantiated article was published in The Caravan Magazine accusing Ajit of running a hedge fund whose promoters were of dubious antecedents.
After the apology was made the Delhi Court on Saturday (19 December) closed the criminal defamation case against Congress leader Jairam Ramesh.
In an article published in The Caravan article titled ‘The D Companies’, Vivek Doval was accused of running a hedge fund whose promoters were of dubious antecedents.
This led to an immediate filing of a criminal defamation case against Ramesh and Caravan magazine Editor-in-Chief Paresh Nath and reporter Kaushal Shroff for damaging his reputation.
In his letter of apology, Ramesh admitted that he made baseless allegations against Ajit and regrets that he should have conducted independent verification on the facts of the articles before jumping to a conclusion. The apology was accepted by Vivek Doval.
Ramesh stated, “I had conducted a press conference on 17 January 2019 making certain statements about you, your family and your business venture GNY Asia Fund. I understand these statements have hurt you deeply.”
He added, “I want to clarify that these statements or accusations, were made drawing conclusions from an article that was published the previous day in the Caravan magazine. As the case progressed, I realized that perhaps some independent verification may have been in order.”
Ramesh felt it was appropriate to highlight the questions raised in the article as the general elections were about to take place. However, he added, “In retrospect, I may have gone overboard in making certain insinuations against you and your family,”.
“Thus, I would like to offer my apologies to you and your family for any hurt the statements have caused. I would also urge the INC to remove the press conference from the press releases available on their website,” he added.
The case against Jairam Ramesh is now closed, however, the defamation proceedings against the magazine and journalist Kaushal Shroff will continue.