Delhi High Court Reserves Judgment On Bloomberg's Plea Against Trial Court Order To Take Down 'Defamatory' Article On Zee

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

Justice Shalinder Kaur reserved the verdict and asked both parties to file written submissions within five days.

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 that 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.

Senior Advocate Rajiv Nayar appearing for Bloomberg submitted that the impugned order ks completely unreasoned and did not indicate any reason as to whether a prima facie case was made out in favour of Zee.

Reading the impugned order, Nayar said: “Where is the reasoning? And he grants a final relief by saying that take down. I am an international reputed news agency. The ex parte order of taking down is passed without any reasoning. I am amazed.”

On the other hand, Advocate Vijay Aggarwal appearing for Zee contended that just because Bloomberg is a media organisation of international repute does not mean that it can defame an Indian company.

He further submitted that Zee was suffering irreparable harm due to the impugned publication and thus, the take-down order passed by the trial court was valid.

Advocate Vijay Aggarwal assisted by Advocates Naman Joshi and Guneet Sidhu appeared for Zee. 

The trial court had observed that Zee had made out a prima facie case for passing ad interim ex-parte orders of injunction and the balance of convenience was also in its favor and against 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 the corporate governance and business operations of Zee and speculated the contents as true.

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 injunctions were passed, considering that the contents of the material in question were per se defamatory.

Title: BLOOMBERG TELEVISION PRODUCTION SERVICES INDIA PRIVATE LIMITED & ORS. v. ZEE ENTERTAINMENT ENTERPRISES LIMITED