Zee, JSPL trade defamation charges against each other

October 27, 2012 03:26 pm | Updated October 18, 2016 02:40 pm IST - New Delhi

NEW DELHI, 09/08/2011: For Metro Plus, Naveen Jindal during an interview in New Delhi. Photo: V.V.Krishnan

NEW DELHI, 09/08/2011: For Metro Plus, Naveen Jindal during an interview in New Delhi. Photo: V.V.Krishnan

Zee News on Saturday said it has sent a Rs 150 crore defamation notice to Congress MP and industrialist Naveen Jindal, who too had filed a Rs 200 crore case against the media conglomerate claiming the TV channel had tried to extort money from his company.

“Zee News has granted a three-day time period to Mr. Naveen Jindal to withdraw all his unsubstantiated and defamatory allegations against Zee News, failing which Mr. Jindal would face civil and criminal actions initiated by Zee News,” the media house said in a statement here.

At a press conference on October 25, Mr. Jindal, who is the Chairman of Jindal Steel and Power Ltd (JSPL) had claimed that the Zee News group attempted to “extort” Rs. 100 crore from the firm for not airing stories against it on coal block allocation.

Mr. Jindal had released a CD claiming that it has records of attempts by Zee editors to strike a purported deal with JSPL.

On Thursday, JSPL had filed a defamation suit for Rs 200 crore against four executives of Zee at Mumbai High Court.

“Notices for which have already been issued to Subhash Chandra, Puneet Goenka, Sudhir Chaudhary and Sameer Ahluwalia of Zee News and Zee Business. The case is likely to come for hearing next week at Mumbai High Court,” the company said.

However, Mr. Jindal’s charges were strongly denied by the Zee group.

“Zee News has condemned and completely rejected the doctored evidence produced by Mr. Jindal. Zee News sees this as a deliberate attempt to malign the trustworthy television network,” the media house said.

JSPL is one of the companies named in the CAG report as one of the beneficiaries of the coal block allocation without auction.

0 / 0
Sign in to unlock member-only benefits!
  • Access 10 free stories every month
  • Save stories to read later
  • Access to comment on every story
  • Sign-up/manage your newsletter subscriptions with a single click
  • Get notified by email for early access to discounts & offers on our products
Sign in

Comments

Comments have to be in English, and in full sentences. They cannot be abusive or personal. Please abide by our community guidelines for posting your comments.

We have migrated to a new commenting platform. If you are already a registered user of The Hindu and logged in, you may continue to engage with our articles. If you do not have an account please register and login to post comments. Users can access their older comments by logging into their accounts on Vuukle.