Country's Highest Defamation Suit, News Channel Ordered To Pay 100 Cr

[dennis]

At Rs. 100 crore, it is the highest defamation suit in the country as the Supreme Court today upheld an order making Times Now, a leading news channel, liable to pay damages after being sued by one of its a former judges.

The channel had, in 2008, erroneously run Justice (retd) P B Sawant's picture instead of another judge in connection with the Provident Fund scam. The image was on air for fifteen seconds. The Bombay High Court had ordered the channel to deposit Rs. 20 crore in cash and give a bank guarantee of Rs. 80 crore to it as damages that the judge sought.

The channel appealed in the High Court contending that it had apologised to the judge which ran in the news scroll for five days. The court though ordered the channel to pay up until a verdict was reached.

Dismissing Times Now's appeal against the order, the Supreme Court today asked the channel to first pay up and return to the Bombay High Court where the case is being heard.


"We are not inclined to interfere....there are serious debate on the issues...which have to be adjudicated by the High Court", the Supreme Court observed.

This is perhaps the first case of its kind where a former Judge has slapped a defamation suit against a media house. Earlier, such cases against the media had been filed mainly by politicians, namely Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa, who had filed 125 defamation cases against The Hindu and other publications during her earlier tenure as chief minister between 2001 and 2004. She had later withdrawn the cases, saying that she hoped that the media would ensure unbiased reporting on her in the future.

More recently, Congress MP Shashi Tharoor filed a Rs. 10 crore defamation suit against a newspaper.
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