Bloomberg Moves Delhi High Court Against Trial Court Order To Take Down 'Defamatory' Article On Zee

News and media platform “The Bloomberg” has moved the Delhi High Court against a trial court order directing it to take down an allegedly defamatory article on Zee Entertainment Enterprises Limited.

Senior Advocate Rajiv Nayar appearing for The Bloomberg mentioned the matter before a division bench headed by Acting Chief Justice Manmohan which allowed urgent listing for tomorrow.

“I am an international news agency. In an ex parte order, the ADJ has asked us to take down the post within a week without a reasoned order,” he said.

The plea has been filed against an order passed by Additional District Judge Harjyot Singh Bhalla of Saket Courts on March 01.

The order was passed in a defamation suit filed by Zee Entertainment against Bloomberg Television Production Services India Private Limited, the company which manages the online news platform, and authors as well as researchers of the publication in question.

The article titled “India Regulator Uncovers $ 241 Million Accounting Issue at Zee” was published by The Bloomberg on February 21.

The trial court had observed that Zee had made out a prima facie case for passing ad interim ex-parte orders of injunction and balance of convenience was also in its favour and against The Bloomberg.

It had added that irreparable loss and injury may be caused to Zee if the injunction was not granted.

It had further restrained the online news platform from posting, circulating or publishing the article on any online or offline platform till March 26.

It was Zee's case that the article was defamatory and was published to malign and defame it, with a pre-meditated and malafide intention.

It was submitted that the contents of the article directly pertained to corporate governance and business operations of Zee and speculated the contents as truth.

It was further contended that after the article was published, Zee and its investors suffered economically, inasmuch as, the stock price of the company fell by almost 15%.

Zee had claimed that the authors and researchers of the article had previously also published several articles against it, but the impugned article had gone to the extent of alleging illegal fund diversion without any basis.

Granting relief to Zee, the judge had said that in various similar cases, ex- parte ad interim injunction were passed, considering that the contents of the material in question were per se defamatory.