Express files Rs 10-crore suit against Business India

MUMBAI, FEBRUARY 17: Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Limited and Chairman and Managing Director, Vivek Goenka, have filed a suit in the...

MUMBAI, FEBRUARY 17: Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Limited and Chairman and Managing Director, Vivek Goenka, have filed a suit in the Bombay High Court for damages of Rs 10 crore against Ashok Advani, printer and publisher, Naazneen Karmali and Ashok Upadhyay, executive editors, and Business India Publications Ltd, proprietors of Business India.

The suit is in respect of an article “Sonthalia holds the aces in Express sale,” published in the January 24-February 6 issue of the Business India magazine.

The article contains a number of false, misleading, malicious and defamatory statements which are calculated to damage the reputation of the Indian Express Group and Goenka. It is implied in the article that the “newspaper group has changed hands…” Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Limited and Vivek Goenka had categorically denied that the Indian Express Group and/or its other publications have been sold to Subhash Chandra, and/or Zee and/or to anyone else or had changed hands as alleged or at all.

At the hearing before Justice Deshmukh yesterday, counsel for the defendants made a statement that the allegations in the article would not be republished. In view of the statement recorded by the court, no further orders were passed.