Before Red Sari,Moro in legal battle over Bhopal book

Spanish writer Javier Moro,recently in the news for a controversial book on Sonia Gandhi,is also embroiled in a controversy...

Spanish writer Javier Moro,recently in the news for a controversial book on Sonia Gandhi,is also embroiled in a controversy with respect to his book on the Bhopal gas tragedy. Moro who had co-written It Was Five Past Midnight with Dominique Lapierre was one of the three persons who were slapped with a lawsuit in 2002. The case has been in the High Court in Jabalpur for the past eight years.

It Was Five Past Midnight was published in India by Shekhar Malhotra in 2001. Within a year,Moro,Lapierre and Malhotra found a lawsuit slapped on them by the Director General of Police,Madhya Pradesh,Swaraj Puri.

My client,Mr Puri went to court on December 25,2002 and registered a civil and criminal suit against Lapierre,Moro and Malhotra. Several passages of the book contained imaginary conversations and instances with my client who was posted in Bhopal as SP,Bhopal,on the night the tragedy struck, says Vivek Tankha,Additional Solicitor General,Supreme Court.

At the time,Tankha was Advocate General,Madhya Pradesh,and fought the case with fellow advocate R K Pancholi. Among others,he cites as fictitious portions of the book which include a scene where Puri is said to have travelled through Bhopal in a police vehicle with a loudspeaker,announcing that more gas was leaking from the Union Carbide plant. There was a rumour that another leak was taking place. My client stood near the plant to reassure panic-striken citizens, says Tankha.

In 2008,an injunction in the Sessions Court in Jabalpur forbade the sale of the book. Summons were issued for the three to appear in Jabalpur but Lapierre and Moro did not show up. Tankha adds that Lapierre presented him with a new edition of the book that omitted any reference to him or the police force. Moro and Malhotra refused to comment on the new addition.