Tuesday 15 November 2011

Supreme Court rejects Times Now plea

The Supreme Court has declined to interfere with a Bombay High Court order that asked Times Global Broadcasting Company Ltd, owner of the Times Now TV channel, to deposit Rs20 crore in cash along with a bank guarantee of Rs80 crore before its appeal against a Pune trial court ruling awarding Rs100 crore in damages for defaming a former apex court judge PB Sawant could be heard.
PB Sawant’s photograph was telecast by mistake during the reportage of the infamous provident fund scam in September, 2008. Though several district judges, some high court judges and a Supreme Court judge had been under the CBI scanner, Justice Sawant had nothing to do with the scandal exposed by a treasury officer Ashthana, who however died while in Ghaziabad jail.

Justice Sawant sued the channel owned by Times Global Broadcasting Company Ltd saying it telecast his photograph for 15 seconds along with the provident fund scamreport on10 September, 2008 The scam allegedly involved Calcutta High Court judge Justice PK Samanta. The report, that mistakenly showed Sawant’s photo in place of Samanta, also said several judges of the higher judiciary were involved in the scam.
Aggrieved by the Pune court order holding it liable to pay the damages to Justice Sawant, who had been the chairman of the Press Council of India too, the company moved the HC but it was directed to deposit the amount of damages so that its appeal could be heard.
Rejecting the company’s appeal against the HC order, a bench headed by Justice GS Singhvi said on 11 November 2011 that there was no error in the HC order. “We find no reason to interfere with HC’s order,” it said.
In its defence, the TV channel asserted that it had already apologised to Justice Sawant in its news scroll for five days in 2008 and was therefore not liable to pay damages.
The Editors Guild of India has expressed concern over the implications of the Supreme Court judgment rejecting to stay the High Court Order. Issuing a statement, it said, “While recognising that the law of defamation is an important qualification of the fundamental right to freedom of expression, the Guild believes that the law of defamation has to be construed in such a manner that it does not constrain the normal functioning of the media.

Source:
http://cablequest.org/news/legal-news/item/711-supreme-court-rejects-times-now-plea.html
Source: http://cablequest.org/news/legal-news/item/711-supreme-court-rejects-times-now-plea.html

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