Notice Issued on Prashant Bhushan’s Plea on Quashing of Defamation Case by Director, Indiabulls Venture Capital

Delhi High Court issued a notice on a plea filed by Mr Prasant Bhushan for quashing the defamation case by Director of India Bulls Venture Capital. A defamation case was lodged against Mr Bhushan by the director of the said company in connection with a Tweet posted by Mr Bhushan in September last year.

“Strange that Red Notices are issued against scamsters after they flee the country. Mallya’s notice was downgraded to allow him to flee. None of them has brought back. The similar story likely to unfold with promoters of Indiabulls who siphoned off 1000 Crs.”  

Indiabulls director alleged that this ‘defamatory statements’ have resulted in damage of reputation and goodwill of the Indiabulls group and the people associated with the group.

Bhushan challenged the maintainability of the defamation case by stating that the Director was just an employee of the Indiabulls Housing Finance Limited who has no locus to fill the case and is not qualified to be an aggrieved person under S.199 CrPC.  

The petition stated, “The tweet was made in the public interest and does not even mention the company the complainant works for. Moreover, Bhavya Narwhal is not even directly linked to IBHFL but to Indiabulls Venture Capital Management, which is one of the hundreds of other such subsidiaries of IBHFL. The said tweet only mentions the promoter of IBHFL. Thus, if there possibly could be any aggrieved person it could only be the promoter, who has chosen not to file any complaint of defamation against the petitioner herein. Thus, the instant complaint case deserves to be quashed,”  

Further adding that the tweet was made to alert the authorities into the irregularities and illegalities being committed by promoters of Indiabulls Housing Finance Limited (IBHFL), against a possible loss to the exchequer of thousands of crores of rupees that IBHFL/ its promoters have borrowed from public banks and institutions. 

The high court listed the matter for further hearing on July 12.