The Madras High Court on Friday granted a permanent injunction in favour of senior BJP leader Subramanian Swamy in the defamation case filed against him by one of the directors of Advantage Strategic Consultants Private ltd in a Singapore court.
The ruling by Justice RS Ramanathan means that no courts outside the jurisdiction of India could take up the defamation case against Swamy till a decision is taken on the petition filed by him in the Madras High Court against the move by the ASC ltd in which Karti, son of former Finance Minister P Chidambaram has major stakes.
During his expose on Aircel-Maxis scam in April 2012, Swamy had alleged that the Karti controlled Advantage Strategic Consulting Private ltd was running an “illegal branch” in Singapore. In a Rs10 crore transaction, the Indian company has declared the Singapore unit as its wholly owned subsidiary. However, the details about it were not furnished in the documents of Registrar of Companies, a mandatory requirement.
Though Karti linked Indian company declared of filing a defamation suit against Swamy, the company filed defamation against him in Singapore a Court and thus summons were issued.
Swamy approached the Supreme Court accusing Chidambaram and son for filing defamation case in Singapore through their “benami firms.” According to him, filing cases in international forums was a dubious move by the father-son duo in retaliation for exposing them in Aircel-Maxis and 2G scam. The Apex court did not consider Swamy’s petition for filing contempt case on this issue.
Following this, Swamy approached the Madras High Court seeking the Chennai based firm to desist from opting filing cases in international forums.
He argued that the Singapore based company was having the same owners residing in Chennai and they were close friends and partners of Karti. As they had not disclosed their business operations in Singapore to the registrar of companies, there was nothing wrong in terming them an illegal company, he had said.