Fair ruling!
During the Harshad Mehta days, there was one journalist in India who had attained a rock star status – Sucheta Dalal. She was the one who broke the story and unraveled the very knotty trades of the Big Bull. Later, like any bright star, she too faded into the dark. But she is not the one to sit idle and do nothing. She and her journalist husband, Debashish Basu started their own publication/website – Moneylife. And this website too has been breaking great stories, exposing many insider deals and nexus.
A couple of months ago, the website had published a story wherein it had alleged that insiders at the National Stock Exchange (NSE) gave unfair advantage to certain high-frequency (algorithmic) traders. Naturally, the NSE was raving mad and it filed a defamation suit against the website. The case was on for some time and yesterday, the ruling from the Bombay High Court, squashed the Rs.100 crore suit against Moneylife. Justice Gautam Patel observed that the magazine had given the exchange an adequate opportunity to defend itself before the articles had been published. The exchange, however, had chosen not to answer the questions from the magazine. Given this, the judge said the NSE cannot use the process of the court to gag the press.
Dismissing the suit, Justice Patel said by not responding to the journalist’s questions, NSE had either shown arrogance or there was an element of truth in the allegations. The court also imposed a Rs.50-lakh penalty on NSE, of which Rs.3 lakh will be paid to Basu and Dalal and the remaining given as charity to Tata Memorial Hospital and Masina Hospital in Mumbai. Currently, yesterday’s ruling stayed this penalty of Rs. 50 lakh on the NSE.
This is a landmark decision in the sense that the Court took cognizance of the fact that the NSE did not bother to answer or issue any clarification to the article by Moneylife. And also a lesson to journalists that they ought to back check with the company about whom they publish and if the company does not respond, publish that fact too!