The long-running legal battle between IPS officer Rupa Moudgil and IAS officer Rohini Sindhuri in Karnataka appears to have taken a dramatic turn last month, with Moudgil telling the Supreme Court that Sindhuri was having an affair with her (former) husband, a senior IAS officer, and that the case formed the factual basis for the social media posts that led to the criminal defamation proceedings against her, which are currently underway in a Karnataka court.
Moudgil made the allegation in the Supreme Court last month while seeking an order to access call detail records (CDRs) relating to two mobile phone numbers that she said would support her defense in the criminal defamation case filed against her by IAS officer Sindhuri. A bench of Justices Ehsanuddin Amanullah and R Mahadevan allowed Moudgil’s appeal and directed the production of records. While the court did not express any opinion on the truth of the allegations, it recorded Moudgil’s allegation that Sindhuri was having an affair with her husband and held that the evidence relating to this allegation could not be treated as irrelevant to her defence.
The court order, issued on May 21, was recently made public.
Moudgil told the court that the alleged affair had “shattered her married life” even though the couple had two children. She told the court that the Facebook posts, which later became the subject of the defamation suit against her, arose from those events that affected her marriage.
According to Moudgil’s petition, communications between Sinduri and her husband took place through a mobile phone number that was not registered in either of their names. She alleged that Sindoori obtained a SIM card in the name of “one of the partners” and gave it to Moudgil’s husband so that they could communicate without attracting attention.
Moudgil’s counsel, senior advocate DS Naidu, told the Supreme Court that deposit records would help establish the factual basis of the statements she made.
“Learned senior counsel for the appellant (Mudgil) submits that the appellant is herself a senior IPS officer and wife of a senior IAS officer. The respondent (Sinduri) was having an affair with her husband due to which, her married life was shattered even though the couple has two children,” the apex court recorded in its order passed on May 21 this year.
Senior advocate Niranjan Reddy, who appeared for Sinduri, denied the allegations and said they had no bearing on the criminal defamation case, while maintaining that the allegations of an affair between Moudgil’s husband and Sinduri were “completely fictitious”.
Reddy said the court only needed to determine whether Moudgil had published defamatory material and not whether her allegations against Sindoori were true.
However, the Supreme Court accepted Moudgil’s claim that the records could be relevant to her defence.
The bench noted that the Facebook posts were a “direct result” of the events relating to Sindhuri and Moudgil, and therefore communications between them could become relevant to the trial.
“Thus, in order to prove the innocence of the accused in a defamation case, especially when it comes to social media posts, the defense of posts advanced, if it relies on some factual aspects which can be proven through documents or materials, which in this case are deposition records, cannot be said to be extraneous and unwarranted material,” the court said while allowing Moudgil’s plea.
The Supreme Court set aside earlier orders of both the lower court and the Karnataka High Court, which had rejected Moudgil’s request for the records.
It asked the authorities to produce the call recording records before the lower court in a “sealed cover” and ordered that any discussion of the records take place “in camera and not in open court.”
The dispute between the two officers arose in February 2023, when Al-Sinduri accused Moudjil of publishing a series of defamatory posts on Facebook and making public statements against her. Sinduri pursued civil and criminal remedies, while Moudgil later filed a separate criminal complaint alleging that Sinduri also made defamatory statements against her. The dispute has witnessed multiple rounds of litigation before courts in Karnataka and the Supreme Court
On June 12 this year, another Supreme Court bench directed Moudgil and Sindhuri to explore an amicable solution through mediation, stating that their protracted public and legal battle was “ruining” their careers. A bench of Justices Satish Chandra Sharma and Sanjeev Sachdeva and retired Supreme Court judge Justice Kurian Joseph appointed a mediator to facilitate the settlement.
Moudgil is currently the Additional Director General of Police (ADGP) and Managing Director of the Karnataka Silk Marketing Board, and Sindhuri is the Special Secretary in the Karnataka Commerce and Industry Department.
