Nusli Wadia has filed a criminal defamation suit against Tata Sons Ltd, its interim chairman Ratan Tata and the board of directors of the Tata group holding company, seeking action under Section 500 of the Indian Penal Code.
A criminal defamation complaint seeks that a person or persons who have falsely and maliciously damaged the reputation of the complainant be jailed.
Section 500 of the IPC states that a person guilty of criminal defamation can be imprisoned for a period of up to two years and fined, or both. The case has been filed at the Chief Metroplitan Magistrate’s court at Ballard Pier in Mumbai, according to Wadia’s lawyer AH Ponda.
The directors against whom complaints have been filed are Ajay Piramal, Amit Chandra, Ishaat Hussain, Nitin Nohria, Ranendra Sen, Vijay Singh, Venu Srinivasan, Ralf Speth, N Chandrasekaran and F Subedar.
Wadia said Tata Sons, Ratan Tata and the board had individually and collectively defamed him by printing, publishing and circulating “false, frivolous, baseless, incorrect, libellous and defamatory material” with the sole intention of tarnishing his reputation.
Wadia has also sought compensation as per the provisions of Section 357 of Code of Criminal Procedure 1973.
The witnesses for the complainant include the likes of Group Executive Chairman of Larsen & Toubro Ltd AM Naik, Independent Director of Tata Motors Subodh Bhargava, and Executive Director of the Godrej Group Tanya Godrej, among others.
Wadia has already been voted out from the boards of Tata Steel Ltd and Tata Motors Ltd following extraordinary general meetings convened to vote on a resolution seeking his removal as independent director. An EGM convened by Tata Chemicals Ltd is currently underway, and his removal as an independent director is on the agenda.
Wadia had earlier filed a civil defamation suit against the Tatas on 15 December seeking Rs 3,000 crore in damages.
Wadia, a long time associate of Ratan Tata, had earlier condemned the sudden decision to fire Cyrus Mistry from the post of Tata Sons chairman on 24 October.
Ponda said that the matter is likely to be heard in March.
(This story was first published on BloombergQuint.)
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