Madras HC rejects News Nation’s plea to review order for Dhoni’s interrogatories
Dhoni filed the defamation suit against News Nation, Zee Media, and Indian Police Service officer Sampath Kumar over alleged malicious statements and news reports
The Madras high court has refused to review an order permitting cricketer MS Dhoni to raise interrogatories (formal written questions) to the television channel News Nation in connection with a ₹100 crore defamation suit. Dhoni filed the suit in 2014 against News Nation and others for linking him with the Indian Premier League (IPL) match fixing controversy.
On May 9, Justice AA Nakkiran dismissed News Nation’s application seeking a review of the court’s order granting the cricketer permission for the interrogatories. The channel claimed its former counsel inadvertently consented to the interrogatories without consulting his client.
Dhoni filed the defamation suit against News Nation, Zee Media, and Indian Police Service officer Sampath Kumar over alleged malicious statements and news reports claiming he was involved in betting and fixing IPL matches in 2013.
The high court earlier granted an interim injunction and restrained the TV channels. Dhoni sought the permission of another high court bench for interrogatories, a set of 17 questions, to News Nation and Zee. He called the written statement of News Nation “generalised” and said it did not contain specific responses to the allegation raised.
A single judge in 2022 allowed the plea for the interrogatories to Zee. In July 2024, another bench granted Dhoni similar permission to send the interrogatories to News Nation after the channel’s counsel gave a “no objection”.
On May 9, the counsel for News Nation claimed that the previous lawyer, who had appeared for the channel, failed to consult his client and had inadvertently given the no objection. News Nation sought a review of the single judge’s order.
Senior counsel PR Raman, who appeared for Dhoni, argued that the single judge’s order cannot be reviewed unless it suffered from a material error. Raman pointed out that Zee also filed an appeal against the order allowing Dhoni to deliver interrogatories. In August 2023, the bench of justices R Mahadevan and Mohammed Shaffiq dismissed Zee’s petition and upheld the single judge’s order. Raman said News Nation’s plea for review must be dismissed.
Justice Nakkiran said an interrogatory can be struck down only if it is unreasonable, vexatious, or was prolix, oppressive, unnecessary. or scandalous. He added the division bench’s order upholding Dhoni’s right to deliver interrogatories to the respondent news channels in his defamation suit meant the interrogatories were not vexatious. Justice Nakkiran said, therefore, News Nation’s present plea deserved to be dismissed.
“The learned counsel for the applicant has contended that the previous counsel had made submissions without getting instructions from the applicant. It is not a valid ground to review the said application. Further, in the instant case, the learned counsel appearing for the applicant has not pointed out any mistake or error apparent on the face of the record,” the court said while dismissing the petition.
The court granted an interim injunction and restrained Zee, Kumar, and others from making defamatory statements against Dhoni. Subsequently, Zee and the others filed their written statements in response to the defamation suit. Dhoni filed an application claiming that Kumar made further defamatory statements in his written submissions, and prayed for contempt of court proceedings.
The high court sentenced Kumar to 15 days of imprisonment for contempt. The Supreme Court stayed the sentence.
