Madras High Court directs publishers of Tamil magazine to pay a compensation of ₹25 lakh to DMK leader T.R. Baalu

Madras High Court awards ₹25 lakh compensation to DMK leader T.R. Baalu for defamatory statements in Junior Vikatan magazine.

The Madras High Court on Tuesday partly decreed a suit for damages filed by Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) leader T.R. Baalu in 2014 and directed the Editor, Publisher and Printer of Tamil magazine Junior Vikatan to pay him a compensation of ₹25 lakh for having attributed to him a speech that he never made against Congress leader Rahul Gandhi.

Justice A.A. Nakkiran held Mr. Baalu would be entitled to be compensated by Vasan Publications Private Limited and directed the Editor R. Kannan, Publisher K. Ashokan and Printer S. Madhavan to pay the amount within a month. He agreed with senior counsel P. Wilson that the article published by the magazine in 2013 was per se defamatory and malicious.

Though the suit had been filed complaining about a 2012 publication too in which the magazine had reportedly made certain insinuations against Mr. Baalu in relation to the Sethu Samudram Project initiated during his tenure as Union Shipping Minister, the judge said, the suit would become barred by limitation with respect to the 2012 publication since it was not filed within a year.

Justice Nakkiran, however, took serious note of a publication made on December 22, 2013 attributing certain statements to have been made by Mr. Baalu against Mr. Gandhi in DMK’s closed door general body meeting held on December 15, 2013. He recorded the submission of the plaintiff that he actually did not speak at all at the general body meet and that the event was not open to the press too.

After analysing the evidence presented by both sides and the testimonies of the witnesses, the judge concluded the 2013 publication was made “without proper verification or confirming the veracity of the news and with a calculated intention of defaming the plaintiff.” He said, the publication had been made purely out of ill will and to tarnish the image of the former Union Minister.

Though the plaintiff had sought damages to the tune of ₹1 crore along with 18% interest from the date of filing of the suit, the judge decreed the suit only to the extent of ₹25 lakh and also refused to grant a permanent injunction restraining the defendants from making future publications regarding the subject matter.