Delhi HC Dismisses PFI's Defamtion Suit Against Times Now [Read Judgment]

The Delhi High Court on Tuesday dismissed a suit for defamation, initiated by the Popular Front of India through Advocate Bahar U Barqi against the Times Now group along with its Editor-in-Chief Rahul Shivshankar, Senior Editor Nikunj Garg and Journalist Anand Narasimhan.

The suit for permanent injunction and damages to the tune of Rs.2,01,00,000 was filed against two specific telecasts by the Defendants which as per the Plaintiff, had the effect of lowering its reputation.

1. Telecast dated August 31, 2017 wherein the Defendants reported that the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) had sought details of the Plaintiff from National Investigative Agency (NIA) and that the NIA dossier with details of cases about the Plaintiff had been sent to MHA. The Defendants also claimed to have accessed this confidential report.
2. Telecast dated September 27, 2017 wherein the Defendants reported that the Plaintiff organization was about to be banned.

The Plaintiff submitted that the claims of the Defendants were false in as much as the Commissioner of Police had admitted before the court in another writ petition filed by the Plaintiff, that there had been no breach of any financial secret of the Government of India. On this basis it was claimed that the Defendants never had access to any document incriminating the Plaintiff and that the aforementioned telecasts were baseless. It was also submitted that the Defendants failed to tender an apology in this regard.

The suit titled "Popular Front of India v. Times Now & Ors." was nevertheless dismissed by the court of Justice Rajiv Sahai Endlaw, being barred by limitation. While the limitation period for filing the suit was one year, the Plaintiffs had approached the court after a period of almost two years.

Justice Endlaw agreed with the Defendants' submission that "Articles 75 & 76 of the Schedule to the Limitation Act, providing for limitation of one year for a suit for compensation for libel and slander respectively, commencing from the date when libel is published and from the date when the words are spoken or when the special damages complained of results, respectively".

The court also noted that the suit was valued below the minimum pecuniary jurisdiction of the high court and further that the plaint did not disclose any cause of action for the relief of injunction.

Dismissing the suit on the aforementioned grounds, the court refrained from addressing the issue of maintainability viz., entitlement of a juristic person to sue for damages for defamation, the entitlement of a claim for defamation against a news broadcaster, effect of non contravention by the plaintiff of details with respect to it having been sought by MHA from NIA and preparation of report by NIA.

The Defendants were represented by Advocates Kunal Tandon, Niti Jain, Richa Shandilya and Girdhar Singh. 

Click Here To Download Judgment

[Read Judgment]