Indian cricketer M S Dhoni has been accused of “wilfully” misleading the Delhi High Court for creating “alarmist circumstances" by a telecom company.
The accusations have been made by Maxx Mobilink Pvt Ltd, a telecom company which had hired Dhoni as its brand ambassador.
Dhoni had earlier accused Ajjay R Agarwal, managing director of the telecom company, of defying the High Court’s 2014 order that the company should not use his name to promote and sell its product.
Agarwal, however, told the Delhi High Court on Tuesday that it never indulged in misusing the name of the ODI captain to take any advantage.
In an affidavit filed in pursuance to the April 21 order, Ajjay R Agarwal claimed that the company had not sold any products post November 17, 2014, in which image and name of Dhoni was used or misused and they did not have any such stock in its custody after that date.
Dhoni had an endorsement agreement with the company which had expired in December 2012.
While seeking that Dhoni's plea for initiating contempt against him be dismissed with cost, the MD said, "I say and submit that the company has removed all material from its own websites and from social media websites including Facebook."
"However, at this juncture, I say and submit that the petitioner number one (Dhoni) is guilty of wilfully misleading this court for the sake of creating alarmist circumstances," Agarwal said in his affidavit.
He also claimed that even much prior to November 17, 2014, they were not using Dhoni's name or image as endorsements in any manner on social media or its websites.
"I say that in the facts of the case before us, Facebook posts containing the image of petitioner number one (Dhoni) was posted by respondent number two (firm) sometime in the year 2012 which was well outside the active webpage of the Facebook account of the respondent number two.
"Which in fact was well within the knowledge of the petitioners (Dhoni and Rhiti Sports) who have deliberately dug up the posts associated with the petitioner number one (Dhoni) herein for the sake of creating the present cause of action...," he alleged.
During the hearing, the counsel appearing for Dhoni sought time to file a rejoinder to the affidavit and the court fixed the matter for hearing on January 24.
(With PTI inputs)
