The Supreme Court on Monday declined to interfere with a Bombay High Court order directing Times Global Broadcasting Co. to deposit Rs20 crore with the high court registrar along with a Rs80 crore bank guarantee in a Rs100 crore defamation suit filed by a retired apex court judge.
The high court set the deposit of money as a pre-condition for taking up the company's appeal challenging the award of Rs100 crore damages to former apex court judge P.B. Sawant by a Pune court.
The apex court bench of Justice G.S. Singhvi and Justice S.J. Mukhopadhaya said: "We are not inclined to stay the high court order".
Times Global Broadcasting was asked to pay damages to Justice Sawant for wrongly carrying his image on the Times Now news channel while telecasting a story on the Ghaziabad district court provident fund scam Sep 10, 2008 in which the name of a Calcutta High Court judge had allegedly figured.
The Pune trial court held Time Now guilty of wrongly showing the picture of Justice Sawant and directed it to pay him Rs100 crore damages.
The Bombay High court directed the Times Now to deposit Rs20 crore with the high court registrar and furnish bank surety of Rs80 crore.
Declining to interfere with the high court order, the court said that the order was conditional.
Senior counsel Harish Salve, who appeared for the Times Global Broadcasting Co., sought a stay on the high court order stating that serious questions were arising from it.
Salve questioned how the damages of Rs100 crore were quantified.