A Victorian court has awarded $200,000 in damages to two brothers, one of whom owns the Thornbury Theatre, over “false and defamatory” comments on Facebook that linked them to political fraud in the Labor Party.

Brothers Aloke and Aakash Kumar took legal action against aspiring councillor Ravichandran Ragupathy, who stood for a seat on the Hume City Council last year, over posts he made on a Facebook page aimed at the Indian community.

Aloke (left) and Aakash Kumar, have been awarded $200,000 by a court for defamatory Facebook posts. 

Mr Ragupathy told The Age he could not afford the pay-out and said that he was not aware before he made his social media comments that they could attract a defamation lawsuit in Australia, a country he migrated to from India in the 1990s and one he regarded as “free”.

According to the County Court judgment, Mr Ragupathy uploaded statements in June last year that said: “How many fake members fees & fundraising monies were diverted to this membership drive and for your own benefits?“, questioned the revenue sources of the “wealthy businessmen” and alleged “everyone knows the Thornbury Theatre is not owned by you both brothers”.

At the time, The Age and 60 Minutes had just broken a story about former Labor strongman Adem Somyurek bragging on tape about manipulating the preselection of Labor MPs with Indian community members’ votes. Mr Somyurek said many of his Indian members were funded by Aloke and Aakash Kumar.

According to the statement of claim, which referred to the Somyurek scandal, Mr Ragupathy posted: “The Age tried to contact both brothers and made several attempts. Why are you both absconding? What are you hiding?”

Ravichandran Ragupathy stood for election to Hume City Council last year.

Judge Julie Clayton awarded $200,000 in total to the Kumars, and ordered Mr Ragupathy to pay their legal costs of $3045 after finding the imputations in the posts that the brothers, prominent members of the community, were corrupt and untruthful probably “tarnished their good reputations”.

The brothers’ lawyer, Mark Stanarevic, said his clients were going to donate the money to help the COVID-19 fight in India.

“My client’s reputations were tarnished by false, defamatory allegations and they sought to vindicate their reputations,” Mr Stanarevic said.

“My clients are happy with the award of damages and think justice has been done.”

A Labor Party event at the Thornbury Theatre in 2016.Credit:Eddie Jim

The Kumars are Labor Party members and hold positions in the Australian Indian Chamber of Commerce and Industry and the South Asian Community Ministerial Advisory Council. Company records show Aloke Kumar is the director of the Thornbury Theatre.

The Facebook page, Tamilmurasu Ragupathy, has more than 2500 friends but the brothers argued more than 75,000 people were exposed to the posts because Mr Ragupathy tagged the Parliament of Victoria page in them.

The posts, Judge Clayton said, had a “significant grapevine effect” and in the days and weeks afterwards. Though the posts were taken down after two days, Judge Clayton said it did not stop the gossip and tarnished their reputations.

The plaintiffs heard comments such as “his political life is over. He is finished” and gossip that alleged they were involved in “very dodgy stuff”.

The brothers told the court they were embarrassed, humiliated and shunned by the community.

“I accept that where defamatory publications are made on social media, they are easily spread,” Judge Clayton said.

Mr Ragupathy, who said he was a Liberal Party supporter, was not represented by a lawyer and did not file a defence.

He told The Age he did not seek the advice of a lawyer earlier because: “Why should I? I’m not guilty”.

Mr Ragupathy said his intention with the Facebook page was to raise “community awareness”.

“The court is for the rich. For the rich there is one law, for the poor there is another law,” he said.

Mr Ragupathy said he intends to appeal the court’s ruling.

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