CHENNAI: Union Textiles Minister Dayanidhi Maran has moved the Madras High Court for a direction to the printer, publisher and editor and others of the English commerce daily Economic Times of Bennet Coleman & Co Limited to pay Rs1 crore towards damages for publishing articles that are allegedly defamatory.In his civil suit filed on Monday, Maran submitted that the daily carried news items in its Delhi edition of the issue dated May 21 last under the headlines “CBI May Name Dayanidhi, Maxis in Aircel Ownership Probe” and “FIR Likely Against Maran, Maxis in Aircel Case”, which were totally defamatory, false and derogatory. It had been written and published with the mala fide intention of defaming the plaintiff and causing disrepute to him.The claims against the plaintiff were that while Maran was the Union Minister for Communication and Information Technology, he had failed to clear the application made by Aircel for licence and spectrum with a view to pressurise the promoter of Aircel C Sivasankaran to strike a deal with Maxis, a Malaysian telecom firm controlled by T Anandakrishnan. Due to non-clearance of Aircel’s application, it sold its stakes to Maxis, whose promoters were close to Maran’s family. The plaintiff stated that all the claims were totally false and baseless. The news published by the defendants were perniciously false, highly defamatory and malicious, aimed at satisfying the defendant’s mean taste with total disregard to any probity, moral or ethics, with a view to denigrating the high image and reputation of the plaintiff, he contended. He sought to restrain the daily from publishing any article concerning him or his activities carried on lawfully.
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