Alipore court bars Mahua Moitra from posting defamatory content against West Bengal Chief Secretary

Trinamool Congress leader Mahua Moitra. | Photo Credit: Sushil Kumar Verma A court at Alipore in West Bengal’s South 24 Parganas district has restrained Mamata All India Trinamool Congress MP Mahua Moitra from posting any defamatory posts against West Bengal Chief Secretary Manoj Agarwal in relation to the deletion of voters during Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls. Mr. Agarwal served as the Chief Electoral Officer of West Bengal and oversaw the SIR before the Assembly polls. After the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government came to power Mr. Agarwal was appointed Chief Secretary.“Defendant (Ms. Moitra), her agents, servants and all persons acting on her behalf are restrained from newly publishing, posting, reposting. sharing and/or repeating, in any form and on any platform, any defamatory statement against the plaintiff, including any statement in connection with the first post dated October 3, 2026 and the second post dated October 6, 2026 or any statement to the effect that the plaintiff is a “Vote Chor”, that he “committed every illegality”, that he was “singularly responsible”, the order by Civil Judge Senior Division 1st Court, Alipore, South 24 Parganas said.The court in its October 14 order directed the MP to delete the “first post dated October 3, 2026 and the second post dated October 6, 2026 from her X account “@MahuaMoitra” within 24 hours of receiving this order.In the social media posts, the Krishnanagar MP had used photographs of the Chief Secretary, calling him the chief architect of SIR which led to deletions of lakhs of voters. On October 9, Mr. Agarwal sent a legal notice to Ms. Moitra over controversial social media posts against him, and demanded an unconditional apology and ₹10 crore as damages for alleged defamation.Ms. Moitra had refused to delete the tweets. After the order by the Alipore court, the Krishnanagar MP said she would file a vacating application to reinforce her right.During the proceedings before the Civil Judge, Mr. Agarwal’s counsel said as the CEO he had no power to delete or include any name on his own. Published - October 15, 2026 10:58 pm IST