The Hindu : National : Judge's suits against <I>The Hindu</I>, 3 others transferred to Chennai court

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Tuesday, Sep 07, 2004

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Judge's suits against The Hindu, 3 others transferred to Chennai court

By J. Venkatesan

NEW DELHI, SEPT. 6. The Supreme Court today ordered the transfer of four of the nine suits filed by Justice N.S. Veerabhadraiah, a Karnataka High Court Judge, against the The Hindu and three other newspapers claiming damages ranging from Rs. 1 lakh to Rs. 10 lakhs for publishing news reports relating to the `Mysore Judges episode' allegedly defamatory to him to the City Civil Court in Chennai.

A three-Judge Bench, comprising the Chief Justice R.C. Lahoti, Justice G.P. Mathur and Justice P.K.I. Balasubramanyan, directed the suits to be transferred to Chennai on transfer petitions filed by The Hindu Editor, N. Ravi, The Times of India, Deccan Herald and Vijaya Karnataka. The court had earlier stayed all further proceedings but permitted the completion of pleadings in the suits pending before the City Civil Court, Bangalore, up to the stage of trial.

The Bench passed the order after hearing K.K. Mani, counsel for The Hindu Editor, N. Ravi, the Reporter, Satyamurthy, and others and counsel for other publications and senior counsel for Mr. Justice Veerabhadraiah. When the matter was taken up today, Mr. Mani informed the court that the respondent had no objection to the transfer of the suits. To a question from the Bench as to which court Mr. Justice Veerabhadriah would prefer, his counsel submitted that he would leave it to the court to decide. The Bench made it clear that only suits against the petitioners before this court would be transferred.

The Bench directed the City Civil Court in Bangalore to transfer to Chennai all the records relating to the four suits and asked the parties to appear in the Chennai City Civil Court on October 11.

The Chennai court was directed to dispose of the suits as expeditiously as possible.

According to the petitioners, Mr. Justice Veerabhadraiah had filed nine defamation suits against newspapers, including The Hindu claiming damages on the ground that his name was linked to the Mysore episode without any basis.

They said that all the reports had been fair and balanced and none of them could be construed as amounting to scandalise the court and bringing the administration of justice into disrepute or interfered with the administration of justice in any way.

Since the plaintiff before the civil court was a sitting High Court Judge, it would be difficult for the petitioner to defend the case before the City Civil Court judge and in the interest of justice the suit should be transferred to a court in any other State, they said and had sought a direction in this regard.

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