Why journalist Sucheta Dalal has disputed removal of content linking Sandesaras to Sterling Biotech case

Delhi court’s 4 April order banned Google, Meta, other media houses from publishing content linking Sandesaras to Sterling Biotech bank fraud case, directed delisting of certain URLs.

Sucheta Dalal, Managing Director of Moneylife | Photo: Commons

New Delhi: Terming it as “erroneous and unsustainable in law”, veteran business journalist Sucheta Dalal has challenged a Delhi court order directing the removal of online media content linking businessman Manoj Kesari Chand Sandesara and his family to the Sterling Biotech bank fraud case.

On Monday, Justice Vinod Kumar Meena of the Tis Hazari courts issued notice on her plea against the 4 April order banning Google, Meta and other unknown parties and media houses from publishing content linking the Sandesaras to the case. The order also directed the immediate de-indexing or delisting of certain URLs from Google platforms like YouTube, and Meta platforms like Facebook, within 36 hours. It also summoned related entities while listing the case for further hearing on 20 April.

Justice Meena, listing the matter for 29 April, issued notices to Meta and Google along with Sandesara, at whose behest the media reporting was banned.

The Supreme Court had last year closed the bank fraud case and quashed proceedings against Sterling Biotech promoters Nitin and Chetan Sandesara after they paid over Rs 5,100 crore and agreed to settle the remaining amount.

In his plea, Manoj Sandesara had alleged defamation, slander and libel, despite the family’s legal exoneration in the SC, arguing that online media reportage was negatively portraying the family without taking into account the facts. The suit named Google, Meta and John Doe media entities as defendants.

Usually, John Doe orders are passed to restrain unidentified perpetrators from continuing acts of defamation.

Dalal, Managing Director of Moneylife magazine and digital news portal and who is known for breaking the 1992 Harshad Mehta stock market scam story, however, argued in her plea that such orders were passed despite her news outlet’s details being publicly available. In such a situation, a notice could have been duly served to her, she said.

Terming the 4 April order as a “flagrant violation” of the principles of natural justice, Dalal said it was passed by the Tis Hazari court without giving her side an opportunity of hearing. She also said this violated her right to freedom of speech and expression, and to equality and life.

Dalal’s plea argued that the Sandesara Group abused the process of law by omitting important details in order to obtain an ex-parte injunction or order. Ex-parte orders are orders passed in the absence of the opposing party or their lawyer.

It further said that although the order was passed in the presence of only the Sandesara Group members, she and her publication were not even served notice that a hearing was scheduled to take place.

Although the details of her news outlet were publicly available and could be obtained through ordinary due diligence, the failure to mention them as a party while taking down their content was an act of “gross negligence or bad faith”, Dalal’s plea said.

According to Dalal’s plea, among the list of articles whose removal was being sought by the Sandesara Group were four articles from Moneylife magazine, run by Dalal alongside Debashis Basu, a veteran financial journalist with over 35 years of experience who has worked with The Times of India, Financial Express, and Business Standard.

Dalal told the court that both she and Basu were award-winning financial journalists. While she had received the Padma Shri for journalism in 2006, he had received the Shriram Sanlam Award for Excellence in Financial Journalism.

Stating that her portal was not defamatory but rather a fair comment on matters of public interest, Dalal’s plea said the news outlet had exercised due diligence in reporting. The plea also said that if the veracity of facts in the articles needed to be established, that could be done by them as well.

The suit by the Sandesara Group is a Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation (SLAPP), the plea said, explaining that the term SLAPP is used to refer to litigation initiated by immensely powerful conglomerates against media or civil society in order to prevent the public from knowing or participating in public interest affairs.

‘Order fails to satisfy three-fold test’

According to Dalal’s plea, the 4 April Delhi court order failed to satisfy the three-fold test for granting pre-trial injunctions, as laid down by the Supreme Court in its 2024 ruling in Bloomberg TV vs Zee Entertainment.

The three ingredients are that there should be a prima facie case, the balance of convenience must be assessed and if there is any irreparable harm caused to any party, that should also be taken into consideration.

Apart from this, the order failed to show that the content of the news articles was “malicious” or palpably false, the plea said.

Although the 4 April order directed Moneylife magazine to remove defamatory content, it did not even specify or identify the content found to be defamatory, the plea added.

For these reasons, Dalal sought setting aside of the order.

(Edited by Nida Fatima Siddiqui)