Rana Kapoor book is no longer banned in full: Delhi HC confines restraint to four passages

Justice Harish Vaidyanathan Shankar upheld the trial court prima facie findings on four passages of Yes Man, but held that a pending-trial ban on the entire book tilts the balance against free speech, and moulded the injunction to cover only those passages.

A trial court had stopped the sale of an entire book because four of its passages looked defamatory or derogatory. On 6 November 2026 the Delhi High Court said the order went too far, and narrowed it to the passages themselves.

The book is Yes Man: The Untold Story of Rana Kapoor, published by HarperCollins India and written by Pavan Chand Lall. The court did not clear the four passages. It kept the restraint on them, and set the rest of the book free until the suit is decided.

Justice Harish Vaidyanathan Shankar decided two appeals together, one by the publisher and one by the author. He left the trial court’s findings on the four passages undisturbed and said none of this was a final view on the merits.

The book, the arrests and the suit

The book came out on 22 December 2020. It covers the life and career of Mr Kapoor, co-founder and former Managing Director and CEO of Yes Bank, in the context of the bank’s rise and crisis.

The Enforcement Directorate and the Central Bureau of Investigation began proceedings against him in March 2020. Mr Kapoor says he was in custody from 8 March 2020 to 19 April 2024.

He sued in the Tis Hazari courts for a permanent injunction against selling and circulating the book. He called the book, an interview and two online articles defamatory, and said they infringed his rights to reputation, privacy and personality and could prejudice a fair trial.

An earlier suit against another publisher, Penguin Random House India, had been filed in 2021. Mr Kapoor says he learned of this book only on 13 January 2022, during that case.

What the trial court ordered

The District Judge-07, Central District, Tis Hazari Courts, passed the order on 10 July 2024. Mr Lall did not appear and was proceeded against ex parte.

The court barred defendants from selling, distributing or circulating the whole book during the suit. It also restrained defamatory statements in the interview and the two articles, and ordered those taken down from websites and YouTube channels.

Mr Kapoor had pointed to 22 statements in the book. HarperCollins says the trial court considered 16 of them and found only three defamatory. The High Court recorded that the trial court found statements (iv), (vii) and (x) defamatory and statement (ii) derogatory, and that the rest did not warrant that conclusion.

The trial court also did not find that the book would prejudice the criminal cases against Mr Kapoor. The High Court noted that this finding went in the appellants’ favour.

The publisher’s case

HarperCollins, represented by Mr Essenese Obhan, called the order erroneous. It argued that the plaint cited no instance of damage to reputation in the years the book had been on sale, and relied on Mahaveer Singhvi v. Hindustan Times and Prof. Imtiaz Ahmad v. Durdana Zamir.

It said the passages were comment on matters already in the public domain. And even if three passages were defamatory, it argued, nothing justified restraining the entire work, citing Ashutosh v. Arun Jaitley.

On innuendo, it said that where a defamatory meaning has to be drawn from a secondary meaning, the plaintiff must plead it, and Mr Kapoor had not. It also relied on the Supreme Court’s decision in Bloomberg Television Production Services India v. Zee Entertainment on pre-trial injunctions.

The author’s case

Mr Percival Billimoria, Senior Advocate, appeared for Mr Lall. He adopted the publisher’s submissions and said the order was a serious restraint on an author and journalist, operating as a form of prior censorship.

He argued that truth, fair comment and privilege cannot ordinarily be settled at the interim stage, citing Khushwant Singh v. Maneka Gandhi and Tata Sons v. Greenpeace International. The material, he said, came from articles, reports and judicial proceedings already public.

He also pointed to delay. The book had been on sale for a long time, he said, with no instance of injury shown.

Mr Kapoor’s answer

Mr Naman Joshi appeared for Mr Kapoor. He said appellate interference with an interim order is limited, citing Ramakant Ambalal Choksi v. Harish Ambala Choksi, and that the trial court had applied the three-part test.

A public figure does not lose protection for reputation, he argued, relying on Swami Ramdev v. Juggernaut Books. Repeating an allegation does not make it true, and a publisher cannot borrow immunity from material printed elsewhere.

On delay, he pointed to Mr Kapoor’s custody and his January 2022 knowledge of the book. The later delay in deciding the application, he said, came from roster changes and transfers of judges.

The limits of an appeal on an injunction

The judge began with the scope of the appeals. They arise under Order XLIII Rule 1(r) of the Code of Civil Procedure against an interim order. Citing Wander Ltd v. Antox India, he said such an appeal is an appeal on principle.

The appellate court does not substitute its discretion because another view is possible, unless the trial court acted arbitrarily, capriciously or perversely, or ignored settled principles. Mohd. Mehtab Khan v. Khushnuma Ibrahim Khan and Ramakant Ambalal Choksi were cited for the same rule.

That limit does not remove the power to interfere. The judge said the court may step in where relevant considerations were ignored or the settled principles were not properly applied.

Bloomberg and the standard for pre-trial bans

He quoted at length from the Supreme Court in Bloomberg. The three-part test of prima facie case, balance of convenience and irreparable harm applies to defamation suits, but must not be applied mechanically, and the court must give detailed reasons.

The Supreme Court also said that an injunction against publication should not be granted without showing that the content is malicious or palpably false. Ex parte injunctions are for exceptional cases where the defence would undoubtedly fail at trial.

The judge agreed that Bloomberg states the general rule of caution. But a literary work, or a public figure as its subject, does not by that fact put a publication beyond ordinary protection of reputation.

The four passages that stayed restrained

The court examined the passages itself. Mr Kapoor had not challenged the trial court’s findings on the other statements, so the dispute narrowed to four: statements (ii), (iv), (vii) and (x). The judge was not persuaded to differ on any of them.

Statement (ii) describes him as an arrogant, erstwhile tycoon whose own actions led the bank to the brink of collapse. The court held that this goes beyond narrating facts. It is a direct characterisation of his personality and ties the bank’s troubles to his conduct.

The trial court called it derogatory, not defamatory, and the High Court agreed with that label. Because the final character of that passage is for the trial court, its publication is to be held in abeyance until that decision.

Influence, qualifications and credit approvals

Statement (iv) suggests that a relative made calls to bank management to help him get a job at a branch. The court said this casts an adverse light on how he got employment.

Framing it as street talk does not dilute the imputation, the court held. It found the trial court’s view of prima facie defamation sound.

Statement (vii) says that subordinates with IIM degrees could outclass him intellectually. The court held that it goes past a comparison of qualifications and comments on his intellectual ability and professional competence.

Statement (x) alleges that he organised credit approvals without managerial sanction, issued unsigned documents and ignored protocols. The court called these specific imputations about how he discharged his duties, not generalised criticism. It was not enough that they came from colleagues or office talk, or that the CBI and ED had raised allegations.

Public domain, fair comment and innuendo

The publisher had justified the passages as based on public material and as fair comment. The judge said that at this stage he was not persuaded that those defences were so clearly established that Mr Kapoor’s claim was bound to fail.

The existence of material in the public domain does not by itself settle whether a particular imputation is justified. Truth, justification and fair comment stay open for trial.

On innuendo, he accepted that a secondary meaning must be pleaded. But where a passage is defamatory in its natural and ordinary meaning, no such pleading is needed, and the trial court had read these passages in that sense.

Why a ban on the whole book failed

Finding a prima facie case on four passages, the judge said, does not answer how much relief should follow. Relief must bear a reasonable relationship to the injury found. He framed the question like this:

“whether, having found only the aforesaid statements to be prima facie defamatory, the learned Trial Court was justified in extending the restraint to the Subject Book in its entirety” (para 94)

The trial court had weighed the balance of convenience on the footing that injury to reputation cannot be undone. The High Court called that relevant, but said it has to be set against the harm a ban does to the other side.

Delay, prejudice and the rest of the book

The book had been in circulation for a considerable period, and no specific loss of reputation had been shown. The court said Mr Kapoor’s custody did not by itself bar relief.

But once knowledge is dated to January 2022, the later passage of time still matters in deciding whether a blanket restraint is needed on a work already in circulation.

The order, the judge noted, also stops publication of portions that were not found defamatory and that Mr Kapoor has not challenged. The public attention on Yes Bank’s rise and fall is not a defence to a prima facie defamatory statement, but it is part of the context.

Two rights, one calibrated order

The judge held that a total ban tilts the balance toward reputation without addressing the freedom of speech and expression the Constitution guarantees. He said that

“the ban on the publication of the book is clearly not warranted” (para 104)

pending trial. He added that the relief should be calibrated so that neither right is unduly stifled or given precedence over the other, and that the trial court appeared to have lost sight of that balance.

He drew support from Swami Ramdev v. Juggernaut Books, where the court restrained only portions of a book that conveyed prima facie defamatory insinuations and left the rest alone. Reputation, that decision said, cannot be sacrificed to free speech, nor free speech to reputation.

The author who did not appear

The court addressed one further point. Mr Lall argued before it the basis for the passages, though he had not appeared before the trial court. The judge said he would be circumspect about examining, for the first time on appeal, facts the author had not placed before the trial court.

That, however, could not justify extending the injunction beyond what the trial court actually found. Findings on four statements cannot turn into a finding that the whole book is defamatory.

Order

The Impugned Order is modified. The restraint on the book now operates only against those portions where statements (ii), (iv), (vii) and (x) occur. The rest of the book is not covered by the injunction because of the findings on those statements.

The publication of statement (ii) stays in abeyance until the trial court decides how to characterise it. The judge said the relief protects Mr Kapoor against further dissemination of the specific imputations, and no more than necessary.

The court clarified that the modification concerns interim relief only and expresses no final view on the allegations or defences. The trial court is to decide the suit uninfluenced by the judgment. Both appeals and pending applications are disposed of, with no order as to costs.