The Zee Media Corporation has moved to the Madras High Court for setting aside the interrogatories (questions which are raised by one party to which other party has to give written response) put by cricketer MS Dhoni in pertaining to the suit filed by Dhoni against Zee in 2014 over the Indian Premier League (IPL) betting scam.
Zee filed a plea challenging a November 11, 2022 order given by a single-judge that had disallowed its prayer to set aside the interrogatories raised by the cricketer.
A bench of Justices R Mahadevan and Mohammed Shaffiq Wednesday refused to grant any interim stay on the single-judge’s order, but agreed to hear Zee’s appeal on March 13, Monday.
A defamation case was filed by Dhoni had in the High Court against Zee media, IPS officer Sampath Kumar and others over for their malicious statements and news reports claiming him to have been a part of betting and match fixing of IPL matches in 2013.
Dhoni sought to restrain the defendants including Kumar, who initially probed the IPL betting scam, from issuing or publishing defamatory statements against him related to the issue.
A interim injunction was granted to the High Court to ZEE and others defamatory statements against the cricketer.
A written statement was issued by Zee and the others in the said suit. Following the written statements, Dhoni filed an application claiming that Kumar had gone on to make further defamatory statements in his written submissions and, thus, prayed that contempt of court proceedings be initiated against Kumar.
In July last year, Dhoni also sought the permission of another bench of the High Court to deliver interrogatories, a set of 17 questions, to Zee claiming that the written statement filed by the media company was “generalized and did not contain specific responses towards the allegation raised.”
That plea was allowed.
Zee then moved High Court seeking that the order granting leave to Dhoni for delivering the interrogatories be set aside.