Deepali Kalia-
On 27th July, Justice Asha Menon of the Delhi High Court dismissed a plea filed by Indian Medical Association (IMA) president J A Jayalal against an order by the Trial Court which had asked him not to utilize the organization’s platform for the propagation of any religion.
The Trial Court had cautioned him and stated that a person chairing such a significant post was not expected to be espousing such loose comments.
An order was passed by the Trial Court on a plea filed by Rohit Jha, who alleged that Jayalal was promoting Christianity and had started a defamatory campaign against the Hindu religion under the cover of establishing the superiority of Allopathy over Ayurveda for the treatment of COVID-19 patients.
It was argued by the plea that Jayalal was misusing his position as IMA president and was misleading the entire country in order to convert Hindus from Hinduism to Christianity.
The plea had sought direction from the Trial Court to prevent the IMA president from speaking, writing, publishing any content in media which was defamatory to Hindu religion and Ayurveda.
Jha contended that an article on March 30, 2020, published in Nation World News and TV debate Jayalal had with Baba Ramdev on several TV news Channels from May 2021 had seriously damaged his reputation in society as a Hindu.
However, the Trial Court stated that there would be no need for an injunction as Jayalal had assured the Court that he will not engage in any such activity.
The IMA president nevertheless challenged the Trial Court’s order and claimed that since he had done no wrong, he had not given any such assurance to the Trial Court.
Advocate Tanmaya Mehta, who represented Jayalal argued that Jayalal was not engaged in the propagation of any religion and that he had not participated in a television debate with Ramdev. Thus, the Advocate stated that the suit which was filed before the Trial Court was built on fake news.
Therefore, the IMA chief had sought a stay on the observations made by the Trial Court’s order against him contending that they were negatively impacting his reputation.
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