Zee, JSPL trade defamation charges against each other

"Zee News has granted a three-day time period to Mr Naveen Jindal to withdraw all his unsubstantiated and defamatory allegations against Zee News, failing which Mr Jindal would face civil and criminal actions initiated by Zee News," the media house said in a statement here. At a press conference on October 25, Jindal, who is the Chairman of Jindal Steel and Power (JSPL) had claimed that the Zee News group attempted to "extort" Rs 100 crore from the firm for not airing stories against it on coal block allocation.

Jindal had released a CD claiming that it has records of attempts by Zee editors to strike a purported deal with JSPL. On Thursday, JSPL had filed a defamation suit for Rs 200 crore against four executives of Zee at Mumbai High Court. "Notices for which have already been issued to Subhash Chandra, Puneet Goenka, Sudhir Chaudhary and Sameer Ahluwalia of Zee News and Zee Business.

The case is likely to come for hearing next week at Mumbai High Court," the company said. However, Jindal's charges were strongly denied by the Zee group. "Zee News has condemned and completely rejected the doctored evidence produced by Jindal. Zee News sees this as a deliberate attempt to malign the trustworthy television network," the media house said. JSPL is one of the companies named in the CAG report as one of the beneficiaries of the coal block allocation without auction.