Indian Political Party Files Libel Suit in America

A libel suit brought by supporters of the woman who is arguably India's most powerful politician, Sonia Gandhi, is colliding with the First Amendment.

The suit, filed recently in state court in Manhattan, seeks $100 million in damages against several New Yorkers who marked a recent visit by Ms. Gandhi to the United Nations by criticizing her in an advertisement placed in the New York Times.

The suit was brought by a New York organization that claims to be a subsidiary of India's National Congress Party, which Ms. Gandhi heads. It is extremely unusual, if not unprecedented, for a foreign political party to sue for libel in an American court.

The defendants include Narain Kataria, who said he retired a decade ago after a career as a legal secretary at the New York-based firm Cahill Gordon & Reindel, and Arish Sahani, who said he retired as an agent at the New York Life Insurance Co.

Ms. Gandhi, whom Forbes.com once declared the third most powerful woman in the world, was in New York last October for the anniversary of Mohandas Gandhi's birth, which the United Nations has declared the International Day of Non-Violence.

A lawyer for Messrs. Kataria and Sahani, Daniel Kornstein, wrote in court papers that the case arose "from a high-handed authoritarian effort" by supporters of the India's most powerful party "to muzzle and punish Congress Party critics in America."

Mr. Kornstein noted that Mohandas Gandhi himself once headed the National Congress Party and was an advocate of free speech.

Of this libel case, Mr. Kornstein wrote, "Gandhi would not approve."

A lawyer for the overseas subsidiary of the Indian National Congress Party, Sheldon Karasik, said that there "are limitations to one's right to free speech."

"The totality of the statements clearly crosses the line," Mr. Karasik, who has filed a similar complaint in state court in New Jersey, said of the advertisement. "It's one thing perhaps to stand up on a soapbox and rant but it is another thing to be very specific and gather a laundry list of alleged wrongs that are supposedly statements of fact."

The lawsuit does not appear to have been filed on Ms. Gandhi's say-so.

"The party in India had nothing to do with this lawsuit," a Queens doctor who heads the overseas National Congress Party, Dr. Surinder Malhotra, told a reporter for an Indian Web site, Rediff.com.