SC refuses to intervene in The Hindu row

The Supreme Court on Monday declined to intervene in the dispute over succession plans of The Hindu newspaper group, Kasturi & Sons Ltd (KLS).

A bench headed by Chief Justice S H Kapadia directed the Company Law Board (CLB), a quasi-judicial body, to hear the warring family members, “expeditiously” from August 8 on a day-to-day basis, “as the working of the newspaper was likely to be affected by the dispute”.

The court said the CLB might take an impartial decision without getting influenced by the observations of the SC and the Madras High Court.

This comes in response to a special leave petition filed against judgment of the Madras High Court on July 1, which went in favour of the editor-in-chief of The Hindu group of publications N Ram.

Ram had expressed the intention to appoint Delhi national bureau associate editor Siddharth Varadarajan as the editor and suggested other changes. The board endorsed it, approved by a majority of the shareholders at KSL, all family members.

The decision would, however, divest all family members of editorial responsibility. Ram has a majority of 7:5 in KSL board. A decision is likely to be taken at the KSL board meeting on Friday.

Members of the family and Ram’s brothers — senior managing director N Murali and editor N Ravi and executive editor Malini Parthasarathy, opposed Ram’s move and in May moved the CLB against it. An interim order by the CLB prompted Ram to move the Madras High Court, which allowed the board meeting to decide on the new editor. The rival group then challenged the high court judgment before the Supreme Court.

Today, counsel for N Ravi and others, Mukul Rohtagi, argued that Varadarajan was a foreigner who held an American passport. He said, according to foreign direct investment rules, a non-resident Indian could not be appointed editor of a newspaper. He also said Varadarajan was junior to the next eligible candidate after Ram, by five grades in the hierarchy.

Another senior counsel of the anti-Ram faction, Shyam Divan, argued that minority members were being oppressed and Section 397 of the Companies Act should be invoked for their protection. He said when highly qualified persons were available for the editor’s post from within the family, Ram was using his power to violate the conventions to bring in an outsider.