A Delhi court has directed Hindustan Times and its former reporter Neelesh Misra to pay Rs 40 lakh in damages to a businessman over a 2007 news report, which alleged that he was sacked from a company over alleged financial irregularities.
District Judge Prabh Deep Kaur directed the newspaper to publish an apology within 60 days and permanently restrained it from defaming the businessman.
The court directed the newspaper to pay 75 percent of the amount, while Misra was ordered to pay the rest of the compensation to Arun Kumar Gupta, founder of Darts IT Network.
As per Gupta, he joined a company called Integrix as Director in 2000 and resigned in July 2005 to start his own company. In March and April 2006, Integrix filed two suits over a defamatory email and hacking of its website. Following the Delhi High Court verdict, it was revealed that the IP address linked to the email and hacking could be traced to Gupta.
Hindustan Times published a news report on January 29, 2007. Without naming Gupta, Misra said in the report that a businessman had been sacked for financial irregularities.
Gupta sued the Hindustan Times, Integrix, its directors, Misra and Integrix’s lawyer for defamation. He later settled the case with all, except Hindustan Times and Misra.
The Counsels appearing for the newspaper and Misra said the article was written on the basis of credible information received from sources and corroborated by various documents, including copies of suits filed by Integrix against Gupta.
They argued that story was about the legal status of electronic mails and published in public interest. They added that Gupta was not the subject matter of the news article.
Since Gupta had settled the suit with Integrix and others as well as the suits filed against him by the company, he lost the right to contend that the allegations in the suits against him were false, observed the court.
It further rejected the objection against reporting of a pending suit on the grounds that the media had a constitutional right to report even pending matters.
The judge, however, found there was nothing on record to suggest that Gupta had been sacked for financial irregularities.