A Delhi court has restrained publishing company Penguin Random House from selling and distributing a book on former Yes Bank CEO Rana Kapoor, titled "The Banker Who Crushed His Diamonds: The YES Bank Story", until the next date of hearing in the matter.
Additional District Judge Rajesh Kumar also restrained Almighty Tech Films from releasing and marketing any film that has a direct or indirect relation or reference to Kapoor without his prior consent. Kapoor was arrested in a case pertaining to an alleged scam at the bank. Claiming that the book is "defamatory", Kapoor approached the court through his lawyers, Vijay Aggarwal, Naman Joshi and Rhythm Aggarwal, and assailed the book written by Furquan Moharkan and published by Penguin. He also said a film is being made on the book by Jodhpur-based Almighty Tech Films.
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Kapoor, through his counsels, said the author has made various baseless and scurrilous allegations against him without any basis and has painted him in a negative light as a "villain", a "control freak" and a "fixer". Appearing in the court for Kapoor, advocate Vijay Aggarwal contended that the book, which is available online as well as offline, was written without any inputs from Kapoor or his family, relying on the statements of undisclosed witnesses.
Further, Almighty Tech Films is now in the process of producing an unauthorised biopic based on the book, which is likely to cause further prejudice to Kapoor, an accused in various cases filed by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) and the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) who has been in judicial custody since March, 2020, Aggarwal told the court. He contended that Kapoor's right to reputation as well as a fair trial are being jeopardised for commercial gain by the publisher, the author and the production house.
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He also submitted that Kapoor has not been found guilty by any court and like any other citizen of the country, he has a constitutional right to be presumed innocent until proven guilty. Aggarwal also pointed out that in similar circumstances, a court had protected the former CEO and managing director of the ICICI Bank, Chanda Kochhar, when an unauthorised biopic on her was about to be released, and Kapoor too is entitled to similar protection. The next hearing in the case is scheduled on January 13.
-With PTI Inputs
