Union minister Hardeep Puri’s daughter Himayani Puri has filed a defamation suit before the Delhi High Court seeking removal of online news reports, posts, videos and other content linking her to child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. The case is likely to be listed for hearing on Tuesday.
Puri has sought ₹10 crore as damages, a permanent injunction against several social media entities and John Doe parties (unknown persons) and removal of the content published across the world on various online platforms. A direction has also been sought to social media intermediaries – X, Google, Meta, and LinkedIn – that when Puri brings similar defamatory statements or imputations to their notice, they must take them down.
According to Puri’s suit, starting from February 22, 2026, several social media entities started making allegations that she (Puri) maintained direct or indirect business, financial, personal, or other network associations with Jeffrey Epstein and/or his criminal activities.
It was also alleged that Real Partners LLC, where Puri was employed, received funding, financial benefits or tainted funds from Epstein or his associates and that one Robert Millard allegedly acted in concert with Puri to engineer the collapse of Lehman Brothers.
Puri has argued that these allegations are entirely false, malicious, and devoid of any factual foundation.
“The Defendant Nos. 1 to 14 and several unidentified John Doe(s)/Ashok Kumar(s) have strategically propagated these unfounded allegations through sensationalist and manipulative formats, including edited videos, misleading captions, and doctored thumbnails, designed to maximise public outrage, digital virality, and consequent reputational harm to the Plaintiff (Puri),” the suit states.
It adds that ‘she is being targeted in a coordinated and motivated manner with the clear intention of maligning and discrediting her, both in India and on a global scale’ and that it is being done only because she is Hardeep Puri’s daughter.
“It is only because Mr Hardeep Singh Puri is currently a senior member of the Union Cabinet that his daughter, the Plaintiff, who is an exceptionally accomplished and self-reliant professional, is being viciously attacked,” the suit contends.
The suit has been settled by senior advocate Mahesh Jethmalani. It has been filed through advocates Madhulika Rai Sharma and Shantanu Agarwal, Manas Arora and Syed Hamza Ghayour of Lexster Law LLP.
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