Bombay HC slams ‘arrogant’ NSE, orders Rs. 50 lakh damages for Moneylife lawsuit

The court has ruled in favor of the defendants Sucheta Dalal and Debashis Basu

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The Bombay High Court, hearing a defamation case filed by the National Stock Exchange against Moneylife news portal, has ruled in favor of the defendents Sucheta Dalal and Debashis Basu, the journalists who run Moneylife.

Speaking to The News Minute, Sucheta Dalal said that the court, while reading out a part of the order, said that the fact that NSE ignored three messages sent across by the journalist seeking a response before the story was published only showed that the NSE was either arrogant or there was an element of truth in the allegations, and that NSE had nothing to say. The court has ordered that each Sucheta Dalal and Debashis Basu be paid Rs. 1.5 lakh and Rs. 47 lakh be paid as punitive damages, directed to Tata Memorial Hospital and Masina Hospital in Mumbai.

Bombay HC rules in favour of @suchetadalal- tells NSE to pay rs. 50lakh damage. @rranjan_in — Eagle-eye (@cbinewton) September 9, 2015

The most damning comment by Bombay HC: "NSE's silence either arrogance or element of truth in allegation" @suchetadalal @Moneylifers — Anuj Singhal (@_anujsinghal) September 9, 2015

You can read about the entire case here. Following a story on Moneylife which exposed the manipulation of technical systems at the NSE, a defamation case was filed against the magazine, in spite of the fact that the journalists had reached out to the NSE for their response. NSE had filed a suit seeking damages up to Rs. 100 crore. Dalal had then told TNM that the lawsuit amounted to harassment by the NSE. “If they were really bothered about the defamation, they should have responded to our repeated queries. And if they didn’t respond, then the lawsuit is only meant to harass us financially and gag us from writing about it,” she said.

Also read: Media and defamation: We stood on quicksand, time to get out or be swallowed