Defamation case judgement on July 24
The Civil High Court will make its judgement on July 24 in a defamation case against former Fiji Labour Party parliamentary leader for the 2018 General Election, Aman RavindraSingh.
Plaintiffs are Prime Minister Voreqe Bainimarama and Attorney-General Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum. Ravindra-Singh is alleged to have posted an unsubstantiated article titled “Regime Dirty Politics” on his Facebook page.
In the post, Ravindra-Singh claimed that Mr Bainimarama and Mr Sayed-Khaiyum had orchestrated temple break-ins, without any evidence to support his claim.
The matter was called before Justice Lyone Seneviratne yesterday. Lawyer for the plaintiffs, Devanesh Sharma and Gul Fatima, appeared while Ravindra-Singh represented himself.
The plaintiffs have sought damages for libel and slander, an order that Ravindra-Singh apologise and that apology be published in a newspaper and that the article be removed from his Facebook page. Mr Sharma yesterday submitted printouts of Ravindra-Singh’s current posts on his Facebook page as part of the evidence.
Mr Sharma said the printouts had everything to do with the case and that Ravindra-Singh still continued to take snide shots at his two clients by using hashtags “#KorruptKaiyum and #ViolentVoreqe”.
Mr Sharma said by continuing to post such comments, RavindraSingh didn’t show any remorse or rendered any apology.
However, Ravindra-Singh objected to the same and told the Court that the printouts of his recent posts had nothing to do with the case.
He claimed that the recent printouts were prejudicial and irrelevant.
He submitted that it was his free speech to make such references and his conduct should not be questioned and neither should be accepted by the court. Ravindra-Singh told the Court that he would appeal the final decision.