Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MP Nishikant Dubey on Monday filed a ₹ 2-crore defamation case against former finance secretary Subhash Chandra Garg, marking the latest escalation in a bitter public spat over GDP growth figures and allegations of misconduct.
“Today, a case of criminal defamation worth 2 crore has been filed against former Finance Secretary Subhash Garg in Patiala Court Delhi and Delhi High Court. Now the decision will be made by the court itself; this case will also evaluate my parliamentary tenure of the last 18 years,” Dubey said in a post in Hindi on Monday evening.
The first was over Garg’s interpretation of the government’s GDP data. The dispute quickly turned personal. Garg rebutted Dubey’s account of his exit from the finance ministry, saying his transfer to the power ministry was consensual and that he later chose voluntary retirement. On X, Dubey denied ever visiting Garg’s office in the finance ministry, gave him seven days to apologise, declaring that he would try to send him to jail.
In another article, Garg questioned the government’s explanation of the revised GDP numbers and referred to a ₹ 12.7 lakh crore difference in GDP for 2024-25. He also shared a letter sent to Prime Minister Narendra Modi in March 2018 , criticising Garg’s approach to fiscal policy. The second dispute relates to an alleged interaction between the two in 2018.
In an opinion piece published in The Quint on September 2, Garg questioned the 7.8% real GDP growth for the first quarter of 2026-27 and argued that the actual GDP growth at current prices was 2.6% and real growth was “close to 0”. Dubey dismissed Garg’s critique, claiming that the retired Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officer was disgruntled because he was removed as the country’s finance ministry in 2019 due to what the MP claimed was the official’s “ignorance”. Garg said in a podcast that Dubey approached him and sought his intervention with the chairman of the Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC) over a transfer or procurement-related matter. Garg said he refused and asked Dubey to approach the Department of Financial Services instead.
Dubey rebutted the claim. “Lies have no legs, have we ever spoken, neither personally nor over the phone? Have you ever even seen the Principal Secretary’s room in the Prime Minister’s Office?
Nor have I ever met Jaitley ji or Nirmala Sitharaman ji in the Finance Ministry…Even a chameleon would feel ashamed of your cunning,” he said, responding to Garg’s post on September 27.
