Time’s Now owners Bennett Coleman & Co. Ltd. (BCCL) have filed a Rs 100 Crore defamation suit against News Laundry Media Pvt. Ltd, including nine of its employees. According to Bar and Bench legal news portal, the case was filed in the Bombay High Court by BCCL, for allegedly defaming the editors of its Times Now news channel, as reported by Newslaundry itself.
According to the news report the BCCL had moved the Court seeking “urgent ad-interim 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 their website and shared via their YouTube channel.” The BCCL has also sought an “unconditional apology” from Newslaundry on its website and on social media platforms it is visible on such as YouTube and Twitter. The BCCL in particular has raised objections to two programmes run by the Newslaundry published on their website and shared on their YouTube channel. The first programme, titled ‘Toadies banega tu? (Do you want to become a Toadies?)It was alleged that Newslaundry made “extremely defamatory statements against Kumar and Shivshankar” which reportedly “caused harm to the reputation of the company and the editors as reputed independent journalists” stated B&B.
According to the new report, the NL video purportedly showed a tweet that stated that the Times Now channel was asking for actor Rhea Chakraborty’s arrest with the hashtag “#IndiaForRheaArrest while the Times of India newspaper was asking for her bail during their reportage on the Sushant Singh Rajput death investigation.” It has been claimed that these remarks were made with “deliberate intention to defame the company” adding that it went “beyond the realm of satire, parody or spoof”. Newslaundry had in December 2020, done an entire show refuting these demands and presenting its side.
However the BCCL has claimed that its reputation was allegedly “lowered in the estimation of colleague, viewers, employees and general public”, submitted to the court “that the video by no stretch of imagination can qualify as independent journalism or news reporting which Newslaundry claims on its website” and that “any right thinking members of the society would conclude that the said video defames and tarnishes the image, reputation and goodwill of the company, its channel and editors” stated the news report.
The second Newslaundry Newslaundry BCCL raised an objection to a show titled Explained: How to rig TRPs aired in November 2020. The allegations state that there was a “picture of editors from the news channel creating an impression that the channel is involved in the alleged the Television Rating Points scam.” The BCCL had already issued legal notices to Newslaundry, YouTube and Twitter India to take the content down, however, “since there was no action by Newslaundry or any response from them, BCCL was compelled to approach the Court,” the plea was reported to have stated.
In its reply, according to Live Law Newslaundry told the court on Tuesday, “It is unfortunate that an organisation like BCCL, which has had a glorious history of standing up for the press,” has filed a defamation suit has filed a defamation suit against a “small, independently run media outlet that has consciously chosen a revenue model that allows it to work fairly without the pressure of the ‘Unofficial Editorial Line’ and without the fear of losing advertisement revenue.”
The B&B report added that Newslaundry informed the Court that it’s motive for putting up the Toadies Banega video was so that “media houses could start reporting accurate content instead of acting for the purpose of TRPs.” The Newslaundry also reportedly stated that they believe in “critical journalism and as above stated believes that no one should be above scrutiny; not politics, industry, civil society and certainly not the media.” Newslaundry has also claimed that it filed a reply to the legal notice, and stated that the video was “merely trying to show the contradictions in reportage within the BCCL organisation by showcasing content as it is from their own reportage” and, hence “it could not amount to defamation is any respect.” The case is likely to be heard next on February 22, 2021.
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