A Delhi court today ordered Bloomberg Television Production Services India Pvt. Ltd to take down a defamatory article published against Zee Entertainment Enterprises Ltd. Zee said that the “factually incorrect article” led to a “15 per cent drop in share price” of the company.
The company, argued in front of the Delhi Sessions Court that the article published by Bloomberg was “false and factually incorrect, with a pre-meditated and malafide intention to defame the company”. The article, on February 21, mentioned details pertaining to the corporate governance and business operations of ZEE, which were inaccurate in nature and led to a 15 per cent drop in share price of the company, eroding investor wealth, it said.
Additional district judge Harjyot Singh Bhalla, in a big relief to Zee, directed Bloomberg to “take down the defamatory article from its platform within one week of receipt of the order”, further restraining the platform from posting, circulating or publishing the article on any online or offline platform till the next date of hearing.
The article by Bloomberg, incorrectly published that Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) has found a $241 million accounting issue at the Company, whereas there is no such order from the mentioned regulator, Zee insisted. It said that “despite the company firmly refuting the same, the article incorrectly published financial irregularities in Zee, without the basis of any order from the regulator”.
