4 min readMumbaiJun 9, 2026 05:57 PM IST
First published on: Jun 9, 2026 at 04:58 PM IST
In a setback to the Lilavati Kirtilal Mehta Medical Trust (LKMM Trust), the Bombay High Court on Tuesday dismissed its interim application seeking to restrain HDFC Bank, its Managing Director and CEO, Sashidhar Jagdishan, and other employees from levelling allegations affecting the Trust’s image. The Trust oversees Lilavati Hospital in Bandra.
The high court passed a ruling on the interim application in a defamation suit seeking Rs 1,000 crore in damages against HDFC Bank and others for allegedly running a “deliberate and sustained smear campaign” against the Trust, pertaining to recovery and enforcement actions initiated by the bank.
The court observed it was “apparent that each and every measure to derail the recovery (from the trust) has been repelled by courts and yet there has effectively been no recovery at all despite the rule of law working its course”, and the present application was “one more in this long chain of proceedings”.
The bench added that “considering the nature of the record relevant to this case, costs must follow the event” and directed the plaintiff Trust to pay HDFC Bank Rs 5 lakh as litigation costs for engaging lawyers and for several hearings, within six weeks.
Senior advocate Devadatt Kamat, for the trust, had argued that HDFC Bank published defamatory statements against the plaintiffs and sought a restraining order.
However, senior advocates Kevic Setalvad and Virag Tulzapurkar, for HDFC Bank and Jagdishan, respectively, argued that every statement in question was factually accurate and did not need to be removed.
‘In public interest that HDFC Bank clarifies factual position’
A single-judge bench of Justice Somasekhar Sundaresan, in his ruling, observed, “The plaintiffs (Trust and others) have not made out a strong prima facie case against HDFC Bank to hold that the subject statements were defamatory in character. The imputations from the subject statements in the minds of ordinary right-thinking people, who are not experts in law, would not be inconsistent with the content of the subject statements, which are not inconsistent with the factual reality discernible from a prima facie reading of the material on record.”
The judge went on to hold that the statements in question were “based on strong material” and represented “bona fide measure to clarify the factual position when faced with a media campaign against HDFC Bank”.
The high court noted that “it was in public interest that HDFC Bank clarifies the factual position considering that banks hold a greater intensity of promise to society and have to be held to a higher standard”.
Justice Sundaresan also noted that the statements in question “do not lend themselves to be regarded as retaliatory defamation for the defamation perceived to have been suffered by HDFC Bank and Jagdishan at the hands of the plaintiffs” and it was the bank’s “autonomous choice” to issue clarifications.
The high court further said that granting relief to the Trust and others, “who have an established track record of running a media campaign against the bank and its officials”, would have caused “grave and irreparable harm” to the bank and Jagdishan.
“Gagging both sides would be contrary to the constitutional default position of free speech that is truthful, because it would gag HDFC Bank through the backdoor with a token gagging of the plaintiffs,” the court noted.
Rejecting the plea, it added that a permanent injunction can always be issued upon the disposal of the suit in case of a change in the prima facie opinion of the court after the trial.
The Bombay High Court ruling came in an interim application by Lilavati Kirtilal Mehta Medical Trust in a defamation suit seeking Rs 1,000 crore in damages against HDFC Bank and others. (File Photo) 
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