New Delhi: The Delhi High Court passed an interim order in a case related to Indian women's hockey player Gurjit Kaur's medical condition where it barred publishing company HarperCollins and former team's coach Sjoerd Marijne from publishing anything related to it, saying information entrusted to him in confidence during his tenure can't be disclosed.
The new book has already generated controversy in the back of certain anecdotes released to the media where the ex-coach described how Narinder Batra couldn't recognize the drag-flicker of the team during a match against the US. Another excerpt talked about the India men's hockey team skipper wanting to include his friend and asking a fellow player for an underwhelming performance.
A bench of Justices Siddharth Mridul and Amit Sharma were of the view that Marijne being the former coach of the Indian team was bound by a code of conduct that restrained him from disclosing information of players for personal gains/benefits.
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"In view of the foregoing, the publishers as well as the author arrayed as Respondents 1 and 2 (Harper Collins and Marijne) in the present appeal are restrained by an ad-interim injunction from publishing the subject book or any other matter incidental thereto or any other matter related to the subject book in so far as it relates to Gurjit Kaur’s medical condition," the Court ordered.
Kaur had earlier challenged a single-judge's order that refused to stay the release of the book. She said the release of book where Marijne has made disclosures related to her medical condition violated her rights to privacy and code of confidentiality.
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In defense, counsel representing the publishing company said that Kaur's medical condition was known to players of the team and was in the public domain. To which the court said, "The assertion that other players were privy to the information will also not come to the aid of the publisher because even those players are bound by the code of confidentiality which precludes them from divulging the information to any third party."
The next hearing on the case will take place on December 7.
