Zee News has slapped a Rs 150-crore defamation notice on Congress member of Parliament Naveen Jindal and Jindal Steel and Power Ltd (JSPL). This was in response to Jindal's press conference on October 25 where he had slapped a defamation suit for Rs 200 crore against four executives of Zee at the Mumbai High Court, for alleged wrongdoing on the part of the news channel.
"Zee News has condemned and completely rejected the doctored evidence produced by Jindal. Zee News sees this as a deliberate attempt to malign the trustworthy television network," the company said in a statement.
Zee News has granted a three-day time period to Jindal to withdraw all his "unsubstantiated and defamatory" allegations against it failing which it would initiate civil and criminal actions.
"Zee News has always been the forerunner in exposing Naveen Jindal’s double standard as a politician and industrialist in the coal block allocation scam. Zee News understands it is to suppress the coverage that Zee News was telecasting on the scam that the corporate communications team from JSPL first tried to bribe Samir Ahluwalia with Rs 25 crore, which he declined straightaway, and later was offered a Rs 100-crore advertising deal to stop the coverage of the scam," the company said.
"We accuse Jindal and JSPL of maligning Zee News since they chose to display an edited/doctored CD where only selected portions were shown. Jindal has a history of unfairly targeting those who dare to confront him with the truth," it said.
The company said similar false allegations have been made by Naveen Jindal and his officials against Zee News in a police complaint and that it sees it as subversion of the due process of law. "Clearly, we see this as an attempt to prejudice and defame us and to over reach the investigation in this regard and have hence sent a defamation notice to JSPL and Jindal," it added.
