Shashi Tharoor’s Suit
A civil defamation suit has been filed by Congress MP Shashi Tharoor against Managing director of Republic TV, Arnab Goswami. Mr. Tharoor had filed the suit seeking damages to the tune of Rs 2 crore, damage and compensation for having suffered humiliation and having suffered severe loss of reputation in the eyes of the public and he has baselessly been declared by the defendants as the alleged murderer of his late wife and had also sought a direction from the Court to restrain Republic TV from broadcasting any show relating to the death of his wife till the investigation is completed by the Delhi Police. The lawsuit filed through advocates Muhammad Ali Khan and Gaurav Gupta claimed that the recordings were released in a sensational manner with an aim to appease the viewers and created a non-existing controversy by maligning his public life and image. While issuing notice to Goswami and channel Justice Manmohan said “Bring down the rhetoric. You can put out your story, you can put out the facts. You cannot call him names. That is uncalled for.”
“Bring down the rhetoric. You can put out your story, you can put out the facts. You cannot call him names. That is uncalled for.”
The plea mentioned that, it is not out of place to say that defendants (Goswami and TV channel) broadcast news reports and alleged expose’ which were intended to lead the viewers to believe that the deceased was murdered either by plaintiff (Tharoor) or at the instance of the plaintiff. Such a broadcast clearly has the potential of adversely impacting the ongoing investigation into the death of the deceased. He has referred to the broadcasting of news items from May 8 to 13 when the TV channel claimed to air an expose connected to the death of his wife.
Such a broadcast clearly has the potential of adversely impacting the ongoing investigation into the death of the deceased, while seeking to restrain from “maligning and defaming him in any manner” by reporting or broadcasting the news relating to the death of Pushkar.
