The Delhi High Court has stayed the release of the book “Close Encounters with Niira Radia” written by controversial former senior counsel R K Anand after Radia filed for defamation and a mandatory and permanent injunction.

Justice VK Jain while hearing the case conceded to Radia’s plea that the book’s release – originally slated for June - would cause grave and irreparable damage to her reputation in the society. Agra-based law firm Khurana & Company acted for Radia.

Anand, who is also infamous for his role in the BMW-hit-and-run case and NDTV sting operation that caused him to be stripped of his senior counsel tag, wrote in his book that he grew close to Radia and began treating her as a “sister” in the mid 1990s after Radia helped him send medicines to the US for his sick wife via the airline client KLM – a client of Radia’s PR firm.

Anand also wrote about Radia’s ambitions to become an airline magnate, according to blog churumuri, which has published detailed extracts, and added:

In reality, it is little but a collation of reports and analyses on a “sprightly, bubbly and vivacious woman who at the age of 35 burst on to India’s political and business centre stage in the form of a whirling diva and whose every fervid gyration spun a web of cunning, duplicity and intrigue, ensnaring a veritable who’s who of those who run this nation’s business, political and journalistic empires.”

Offering a slightly differing account from the excerpt published by the blog, the Times of India reported that the book was premised on “confidential and absolutely privileged information and documents” that Anand had obtained during the course of his engagement as a senior counsel for the airline KLM UK, represented by Radia.

The follows the November 2010 release of Radia’s controversial tapped conversations with high profile industrialists, politicians and journalists, which showed evidence of impropriety.

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