MUMBAI: The Bombay High Court on Thursday disposed of a ₹ 125-crore defamation suit filed by the Saifee Hospital Trust against a first-year general surgery trainee over “defamatory” social media posts, noting that the parties have amicably resolved all the differences and disputes.
Luqman subsequently published multiple social media posts in which she alleged mental harassment by seniors and the hospital management, tagging the Mumbai police and the police commissioner.
Both parties then amicably settled the matter, with the trust informing the court that it was ready to withdraw the suit. Accordingly, the suit was disposed of. However, on September 22, Luqman filed an affidavit in court denying publishing most of the posts.
She said only one post on X dated July 2 was hers and its contents were true, published “out of desperation” because her grievances remained unaddressed. A day later, Luqman told the court that she was willing to issue an unconditional apology to the trust and take down the posts. On October 1, the court recorded the consent terms, noting that they had been signed without any “influence and coercion”.
A single-judge bench of justice Arif Doctor also directed social media users who had republished Luqman’s posts about the hospital to take them down within 36 hours. Countering the allegations, Luqman told the court that she was routinely required to work from 7 am to 10 pm without any weekly off. Luqman had alleged in her posts that the hospital and its doctors subjected medical trainees to illegal working hours, ragging, torture and mental harassment.
This was after the trainee, Dr Asiya Khan Luqman, told the court that she was willing to take down the posts and issue an unconditional apology to the trust, which manages the premier Saifee Hospital at Charni Road. She added that she was subjected to “ill treatment” by a second-year resident doctor, which caused her “grave mental agony and embarrassment”.
