Astronomical damages sought from Indian TV channel
Reporters Without Borders (RSF) calls on the Indian courts to dismiss a defamation suit in which the Indian defence company Reliance is seeking 100 billion rupees (1.2 billion euros) in damages from New Delhi-based NDTV in connection with its coverage of India’s acquisition of 36 French “Rafale” jet fighters in 2016.
RSF regards the colossal damages sought in this lawsuit, which a court in the western city of Ahmedabad is due to begin hearing tomorrow, as an attempt to intimidate the Indian media and deter them from investigating why Reliance was chosen as French company Dassault Aviation’s Indian partner for the contract.
The suit was prompted by the report about the deal that NDTV broadcast on 29 September as part of his Truth vs Hype current affairs programme. The programme’s presenter, Sreenivasan Jain, and one of its producers, Prannoy Roy, are named in the suit.
The NDTV report, which was followed by a debate, delved into the controversy in the Indian media resulting from a report by the French investigative news website Mediapart in late September about why, when the deal was struck, Reliance was chosen to make components for the 36 French jets and to service them.
Mediapart quoted former French President François Hollande as saying France “didn't have a say in the matter.”
This revived Indian media suspicions about favouritism. Reliance’s billionaire owner, Anil Ambani, is Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s friend. The NDTV programme elicited the lawsuit by apparently going too far in its attempts to shed light on all aspects of the affair and to question the various parties involved.
“Public interest”
“We urge the Indian justice system to act wisely by dismissing this lawsuit,” said Daniel Bastard, the head of RSF’s Asia-Pacific desk. “By seeking such an astronomical sum in damages, Reliance is clearly trying to intimidate all the other media that might want to investigate the hidden aspects of this deal. Allowing the lawsuit to do ahead would mean denying journalists the right to do their job.”
Defending the programme, NDTV said it was “asking questions about a defence deal and seeking answers that are very much in the public interest.” It added that it had tried in vain to get Reliance representatives to give their viewpoint.
Mediapart has meanwhile given NDTV’s journalists more material by obtaining a Dassault Aviation document from 2017 in which one of the company’s executives says that the choice of Reliance as partner was “imperative and obligatory” in order to secure the deal.
India is ranked 138th out of 180 countries in RSF’s 2018 World Press Freedom Index.
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