NDTV employees got a very interesting mail this evening from the CEO, Vikram Chandra... Here's what Vikram said ~
Hi all,
A completely defamatory, scurrilous and fictitious application has been made in the Patiala House Courts by a man called SK Srivastava.
The application is full of bizarre claims about NDTV together with claims of " a serialized prostitution racket" in the Income tax department.
This same man had filed a similar petition in the Delhi HC a couple of years back which the judge dismissed as follows. The full quote is worth reading!
"We find the petitioner to have made reckless and scandalous allegations against the various officials of the Income Tax department.
The petition is clearly an abuse of the process of this Court and intended to embarrass the colleagues of the petitioner in the department who are impleaded in the petition as respondents in their personal capacity. The petition is liable to be summarily dismissed on this ground alone. The Supreme Court in Gurpal Singh vs State of Punjab, (2005) 5 SCC 136 has held that in public interest litigation, nobody should be allowed to indulge in wild and reckless allegations besmirching the character of others. It was further held, that when frivolous pleas are taken, the Court should do well not only to dismiss the petition but also to impose exemplary costs; that when a particular person is the object and target, the Court has to be careful to see whether the attack in the guise of public interest is really intended to unleash a private vendetta, personal grouse or some other mala fide object.
We do not find any merit in the petition, the same is dismissed with costs of Rs.20,000/- payable by the petitioner to the respondent no.1 within six weeks from today."
NDTV has now filed a defamation suit against this person and will take similar action against anyone else who repeats complete rubbish like this.
Best
Vikram
They are on wrong track again. Firstly, this email conceals the fact that the order was overturned by SC ON 26 April 2010 and legally the the said order ( quoted in the email ) is null and void. SC also waived any fine and the case was not on merits but whether a govt officer can file PIL .
ReplyDeleteSecondly in the present instance, they seemed to have filed defamation case in Mumbai wh is certain to be rejected on grounds of jurisdiction as neither party or cause of action belongs to or at Mumbai.
Either way as a journalist I would like NDTV to come clean on substantive points raised in the submission. As claimed these are facts collected by a government department and should be countered point by point if they are wrong .Why aren't they doing it?