R Venkatramanan of Tata Trusts summoned to court on December 18 in a criminal defamation case by SP group

A magistrate court today summoned R. Venkatramanan of Tata Trusts in court on 18 December 2018 following a criminal defamation complaint filed by the Shapoorji Pallonji Group.

Counsel Abad Ponda appearing for the SP Group had stated that Venkataramanan had made defamatory statements against the SP group after he was named as an accused in the AirAsia scam.

In mid 2018, Venkatraman had stated that in his capacity as non-executive director of Air Asia India, he had been wrongly named as an accused by the CBI on operational matters where he had little or no role to play.


"It is commonly known that the present accusations qua Air Asia India find their root in baseless allegations made by Mr. Cyrus P Mistry and the Shapoor Pallonji Group against Tata Trusts Trustees (me included) and Tata Sons in his ‘revenge’ legal actions"he had stated.

Shapoorji Pallonji And Co. Pvt Ltd had filed a criminal defamatory case against Mr. R Venkataramanan, Managing Trustee of Tata Trusts, for his unwarranted press statement which contained various inappropriate, false, baseless and defamatory allegations against Shapoorji Pallonji Group.

"We were constrained to take all appropriate legal actions to protect our long-standing goodwill and reputation, from such false and defamatory allegations." the group stated.