The Bombay High Court on Wednesday accepted the unconditional apology by actor Payal Ghosh to Richa Chadha which says she withdraws all defamatory and derogatory statements.
A single Bench of justice A.K. Menon accepted the apology in the form of consent terms and disposed of the suit against Ms. Ghosh.
Kamaal R. Khan and news channel ABN Telugu TV will contest the suit. The court granted them four weeks to file their reply.
Ms. Ghosh’s statement in court said, “She withdraws her statements and defamatory posts pertaining to the plaintiff (Ms. Chadha) as mentioned vide the current interim application and suit, including without limitation her statements and defamatory posts vide the interview to the plaint and unconditionally apologises to the plaintiff.”
“She undertakes to delete all her above statements and defamatory posts against the plaintiff on Twitter and other media where she has published the same and further also undertakes not to state, make, publish and/or republish any defamatory, insulting, humiliating statements against the plaintiff at any time in perpetuity, related to the subject matter of the present interim application in any manner and/or for any purpose.”
Ms. Chadha through advocate Saveena Bedi Sachar sought an apology and an interim injunction to Ms. Ghosh to withdraw her statement, video, articles and tweets in relation to Ms. Chadha and damages of ₹1.1 crore.
On September 19, Ms. Ghosh gave an interview to ABN in which the statements were made.
The plaint said, “The claims made by Ms. Ghosh in the video are not only false, frivolous and vexatious but has also been done with an intent to cause damage to the immense goodwill.”