Delhi High Court Rejects Bloomberg's Appeal Against Trial Court Order To Take Down 'Defamatory' Article On Zee

Justice Shalinder Kaur upheld the trial court order and granted three days time to The Bloomberg to comply with the directions of the Additional District Judge.

In case of urgency, the parties will be at liberty to seek early hearing before the ADJ, the court added. 

Justice Kaur observed that the ADJ applied his mind to the facts of the case and satisfied himself that prima facie there was enough material to come to the conclusion for granting an ex-parte ad-interim injunction, otherwise the entire purpose of filing the application would have been rendered infructuous. 

“Being conscious of the provisions of Order XXXIX Rule 3A of the Code of Civil Procedure, the learned ADJ has fixed the next date of hearing as 26.03.2024 for deciding the application under Order XXXIX Rule 1 and 2 of the Code of Civil Procedure. I, thus, do not find any ground to interfere with the order impugned herein. Consequently, the appeal along with pending applications, stands dismissed,” the court said.

The plea was 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 had 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 had 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 had 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.

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.

Counsel for Appellant: Senior Advocates Rajiv Nayar and Jayant Mehta along with Advocates Shiv Sapra, Samiron Borkataky, Saurabh Seth and Rajat

Counsel for Respondent: Advocates Vijay Aggarwal, Naman Joshi, Tarun Singla, Guneet Sidhu, Aayushi Bansal, Raddaramanrajoria

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

Citation: 2024 LiveLaw (Del) 305

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