921-NMSL2760-15.DOC
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IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE AT BOMBAY
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ORDINARY ORIGINAL CIVIL JURISDICTION
NOTICE OF MOTION (L) NO. 2760 OF 2015
IN
SUIT (L) NO. 1040 OF 2015
…Plaintiffs
…Defendant
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Tata Value Homes Ltd. & Anr.
Versus
Nityanand Sinha
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Mr. T. Cooper, with Ms. D. Mani, Ms. A. Nair & Mr. Surendheao,
i/b Indialaw, for the Plaintiffs.
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PC:1.
CORAM:
DATED:
G.S. PATEL, J
8th October 2015
Heard Mr. Cooper for the Plaintiffs. Notice has been given to
the Defendant. An Affidavit of Service dated 8th October 2015 is
filed.
2.
This is action for damages in defamation. The Plaintiffs are
two companies in the Tata Group. The 1st Plaintiff is a wholly
owned subsidiary of Tata Housing Development Company
Limited. The Plaintiffs are engaged in the business of various types
of housing and housing schemes as also other real estate
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development projects across India, including in the National
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Capital Region of Delhi. The 2nd Plaintiff is a joint venture
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between a subsidiary of the 1st Plaintiff and one SAS Realtech. The
2nd Plaintiff is described, therefore, as a step-down subsidiary of
the 1st Plaintiff.
3.
The Defendant is an ex-employee of the 2nd Plaintiff. In
2014, the Defendant was a General Manager with the 2nd Plaintiff.
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He was stationed at Bahadurgarh, Haryana as Project Head of the
Plaintiffs’ New Haven Residential Project being undertaken there.
4.
On 16th June 2015, the Defendant’s services were
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terminated. Although the Plaintiffs have set out the reasons for this
termination, I do not think these are germane for today’s purposes.
If necessary, these will be considered at the final hearing of the
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Notice of Motion. It is sufficient to state that relations between the
Plaintiffs and the Defendant since that time have been very strained
and that there has been much acrimony at least on the part of the
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Defendant. The Plaintiffs have had to file at least one police
complaint against the Defendant. According to the Plaintiffs, the
Defendant has inundated various officials of the Plaintiffs with
emails complaining about his termination. The Defendant,
however, did not restrict his communications to the Plaintiffs but
also circulated emails to various journalists and representatives of
media houses. He also sent an email to one of the Plaintiffs’
investors or financiers.
5.
In mid-August 2015 attempts were made at resolving these
disputes. It is not necessary at this stage to go into the details of
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these. I find that there is annexed to the plaint a transcript of a
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telephone conversation said to have taken place between the
most unpleasant reading.
6.
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Plaintiffs’ external counsel and the Defendant. It makes for the
The Plaintiffs’ immediate concern is not only that Defendant
has continued to threaten the Plaintiffs and their officials and make
unreasonable monetary demands, in respect of which the Plaintiffs
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have adopted separate civil and criminal proceedings, but that the
Defendant has since 24th September 2015 been using social media
networks, specifically, Facebook and Twitter to make a number of
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allegations against the Plaintiffs. These are said to be defamatory.
Samples of the Defendant’s posts are annexed to the plaint at
Exhibits “C1”, “C2”, “D1” and “D2”. I must note that for some
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reason some of these offending posts have been made by the
Defendant not only on his own Facebook page but also on the
Plaintiffs’ Facebook page and this is evident from the reproduction
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which is found at Exhibits “C1” and “C2” to the Plaint. Exhibits
“D1” and “D2” are the Defendant’s tweets on his Twitter account.
8.
While it does seem that the Defendant does not have a
significant following or a readership of any consequence, I notice
that there are certain posts such on Facebook such as those
reproduced at pages 40, 41, 42, 43, 51 and 52 of the plaint that seem
to have been seen by third parties and received at least some form
of approbation. The Defendant’s tweets do not seem to have gained
much currency but I noticed that he has not merely posted these on
his own Twitter account but has tagged various news channels such
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as Financial Express, NDTV India, Livemint, Economic Times,
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MoneyControl.com, Times Now, BBC, the Wall Street Journal and
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so on. The intention is quite clear and that is to give the widest
possible publicity to the Defendant’s posts. There is, therefore, no
question about the publication and dissemination of the Defendant.
9.
Mr. Cooper says that the posts are per se defamatory. He
draws attention to paragraphs 13 and 18 of the plaint in which it is
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pointed out that the Defendant’s allegations are inter alia of
unethical conduct by the Plaintiffs, allegations without, he says, a
shred of truth, and of innocent customers being “fleeced”, also
equally false. There is generally a denigration of the Plaintiffs’ and
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of the Tata Group as a whole. There is, he says, nothing genuine
about these posts. They do not fall within the realm of fair
comment. They are defamatory and slanderous allegations, and
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arise from, and only from, the Defendant’s demonstrable
disgruntlement, disaffection and hostility. That the Defendant has
made a number of monetary demands that the Plaintiffs saw as
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extortionate and did not accept is also evident from the annexures
to the plaint. There is, Mr. Cooper says, and I think rightly no
privilege of any sort that attaches to these posts so as to protect
them. Nothing in them can prima facie be said to be bona fide; on the
contrary, in his submission, malice is writ large on the face of the
posts.
10.
I am inclined to agree. This is no sense journalism or fair
reportage. The Plaintiffs are not a public body to be held to have to
prove a high standard of actual malice. I do not see how it is
possible to conclude that the Defendant’s posts meet a good faith
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standard or can be said to have been made in the reasonable belief
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of their truth. They appear, prima facie, to be allegations levelled
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only to further a private agenda and a vendetta of some kind. That
is not protected, and if the Defendant labours under some delusion
that because his posts are on the Web they are somehow immune
from ordinary civil and criminal law, he is utterly in error. If the
Defendant intends to plead truth, then I would have expected his
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posts to at least hint at it. They do not.
I am satisfied that a prima facie case has been made out at
least sufficient for the grant of ad-interim injunction. I have also no
doubt that the balance of convenience favours the Plaintiffs and
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permitting the Defendant to continue posting will cause the
Plaintiffs’ irretrievable harm possibly to an extent that does not lend
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itself to easy monetary recompense.
12.
For these reasons, there will be an ad-interim injunction in
terms of prayer clauses (a) and (b) of the Notice of Motion, which
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read thus:
“(a) That pending the hearing and final
disposal of the present Suit, this Hon’ble
Court be pleased to pass a temporary order
and injunction against the Defendant his
servant,
agents,
employee,
person
or
persons claiming through or under him to
forthwith
remove
all
the
scandalous
material
including
facebook
comments,
twitter posts, or any other comment(s)
against the Plaintiffs on the social media
platform and further be pleased to pass an
order of perpetual injunction restraining
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the Defendant from issuing, disseminating,
circulating, communicating any defamatory,
malicious,
scandalous
statement(s),
allegations, insinuations, either written
or spoken, thereby amounting to libel, by
way of publication of the same, and/or
slander
against
the
Plaintiffs,
then
directors, principal officers,
agents,
representatives,
employees,
servants,
clients,
business associates,
business
partners, companies forming a part of the
Tata group of companies by way of emails,
letters,
SMSes,
social
media
posts,
websites, newspapers print or electronic,
or in any other manner whatsoever, to any
third parties/ general public including
but not limited to newspaper editors,
journalists,
clients,
business
associates/business
partners
of
the
Plaintiffs/Tata group of companies or any
other third parties/ general public;
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921-NMSL2760-15.DOC
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(b) Pending
the
hearing
and
final
disposal
of
the
present
Suit,
the
Defendant be restrained by an interim
order not to post, or promote any comments
already
posted,
by
way
of
publishing/writing/ posting, on any social
media, print media etc.;”
13.
Affidavit in Reply to be filed and served on or before 26th
November 2015. Affidavit in Rejoinder, if any, to be filed and served
on or before 7th December 2015.
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14.
List the Notice of Motion for hearing and final disposal on
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23rd December 2015 at 3:00 pm.
(G. S. PATEL, J.)
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CERTIFICATE
“Certified to be a true and correct copy of the original signed Judgment/Order.”
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