Bhagat settles case with Bihar royals
PATNA: Chetan Bhagat and the erstwhile princely state of Dumraon in Bihar, which slapped a ₹1 crore defamation suit against the best-selling author, have reached an out-of-court settlement after he tendered an unconditional apology for “unintended confusion and misunderstanding” over the “fictional” references to the royal family in his book “Half Girlfriend”.
Chandra Vijay Singh slapped the defamation suit in 2016 claiming the male members of the family were maliciously portrayed as alcoholics and gamblers in the book. He cited “express and implied references” to his family in Bhagat’s book, first published in 2014, that, he said, were “false and derogatory in nature”.
Singh is the eldest son of Maharaja Bahadur Kamal Singh, a-two-term Lok Sabha MP andthe last ruler of Dumraon before its accession to the Indian union in 1952. Gaurav Ghosh, the counsel for Singh, confirmed the terms of the outof-court settlement reached between Bhagat and Rupa Publishers and Singh. Shyam Moorjani, the lawyer who represented Bhagat and Rupa, declined to comment on the case.
“I clarify that the aforesaid depiction of the royal family of Dumraon was completely based on fiction … I apologize to anyone if hurt by the said fictional representation of the assumed royal family in the novel,” he said.
SHYAM MOORJANI, THE LAWYER WHO REPRESENTED BHAGAT AND RUPA, DECLINED TO COMMENT ON THE CASE