Magazine defaming me to 'settle scores with father': NSA Ajit Doval's son

New Delhi: A Delhi court on Tuesday took cognisance of the defamation complaint filed by NSA Ajit Doval's son Vivek Doval against a news magazine for allegedly publishing a defamatory article and posted the matter for next week.

Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Samar Vishal posted the matter against The Caravan for January 30 when the statement of witnesses named by Vivek Doval will be recorded.

Apart from Vivek Doval, the other two witnesses are his friend Nikhil Kapoor and business partner Amit Sharma.

Vivek Doval had moved to court against the magazine, the author of the article Kaushal Shroff and Congress leader Jairam Ramesh for holding a press conference on January 17 reiterating the "baseless and unfounded facts" as narrated in the article.

The Caravan, had in its January 16 online journal titled, "The D Companies" had said that Vivek Doval, "runs a hedge fund in the Cayman Islands" which is "an established tax haven" and was "registered merely 13 days after Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government demonetised all existing Rs. 500 and Rs. 1,000 currency notes, in 2016".

Vivek Doval had claimed in his complaint that the magazine was "deliberately maligning and defaming" him to "settle scores with his father".

With regard to Jairam Ramesh, the complaint had said that the press conference addressed by him went "beyond the mere narration in the article" and that he was already geared and armed to launch an attack, "merely waiting for the publication of the article", which could then provide a "smokescreen to the otherwise targeted and deliberate attack on the reputation of the complainant and his family".