Order on defamation complaint against Naveen Jindal tomorrow

NEW DELHI: A Delhi court is likely to pronounce tomorrow its order on issue of taking cognisance of Zee News Editor Sudhir Chaudhary's criminal defamation complaint against Congress MP Naveen Jindal and 16 officials of his firm Jindal Steel and Power Ltd (JSPL).

On December 21 last year, Metropolitan Magistrate Jay Thareja had reserved for January 3 his order on taking cognisance of Chaudhary's complaint which alleged that Jindal and JSPL officials had made "deliberately false" statements against him with the intention to tarnish his image.

In his complaint, Chaudhary had said defamatory statements were made in an FIR lodged against him in the alleged Rs 100 crore extortion bid case at a press conference held here.

Chaudhary and Zee Business Editor Samir Ahluwalia were arrested on November 27, 2012 on a complaint by Jindal's firm that they had demanded Rs 100 crore as an advertising deal for not airing "negative" news reports against the firm in connection with the coal block allocation scandal.

Both Chaudhary and Ahluwalia were granted bail on December 17, 2012 by the court.

They have been booked under section 384 (extortion), 420 (cheating), 120 B (criminal conspiracy) and 511 (punishment for attempting to commit offences punishable with imprisonment for life or other imprisonment) of the IPC.

During the hearing on December 21, Chaudhary's lawyer Vijay Aggarwal had said the complaint in the alleged extortion case was filed by Rajeev Bhadauria, Director (HR) of JSPL, and all others who are named in the defamation complaint, were well aware that false statements have been made in it.