Bennett Coleman & Co. Ltd. (BCCL) has filed a hundred crore defamation suit against News Laundry Media Pvt. Ltd. and nine of its employees in the Bombay High Court for allegedly defaming the editors of the Times Now channel a part of the BCCL television broadcasting and distribution group – Times Network.
BCCL has sought directions to Newslaundry to deposit the entire compensation amount with the high court and to restrain them from re-telecasting or commenting on the defamatory content published on its website and YouTube channel.
The petition questions the “tone and tenor” of the videos, alleging misuse of freedom of speech and expression, terming it as a malicious attempt to malign the reputation of Senior Management of BCCL.
It claimed that the remarks were made with a deliberate intention to defame the company.
“The remarks made in the video against the channel of the applicant and against the editors of the applicant as the hosts on the channel, and the promoters of the applicant go beyond the realm of satire, parody or spoof,” the petition stated.
As a result of the video, BCCL claimed to have suffered in its reputation which was allegedly lowered in the estimation of colleagues, viewers, employees, and the general public.
Newslaundry has submitted that it did not air the shows to defame any particular news channel but only attempted to comment upon how media outlets are more focused on TRPs instead of reporting facts.
