Stung by lawsuit, Times Now says it won’t defame Bollywood

The Times Network on Tuesday undertook to not run anything on its Times Now news channel that is defamatory to the Hindi film industry. The undertaking is an outcome of a suit filed by 38 Bollywood associations last October after the network targeted and defamed people associated with the industry during its months-long coverage of actor Sushant Singh Rajput’s death.

In a joint statement with the Producers Guild of India, Times Network said they were “pleased” to confirm that they have settled the matter and that the application for settlement along with consent terms is pending to be accepted by the Delhi High Court.

“Times Now reaffirms its commitment to abide by the Programme Code under the Cable Television Network Regulation Act 1995 and the Cable Television Network Rules, 1994, and undertakes not to publish or air anything that is defamatory to the plaintiffs on the Times Now channel,” the network said.

The statement further said the plaintiffs and Times Group can look forward to building their “historically cordial relationship”.

The four film associations and 34 production houses which had filed the suit involved such toplist names as Shah Rukh Khan, Aamir Khan, Salman Khan, and Akshay Kumar. They sought a permanent injunction against Times Now and Republic TV “from carrying on reportage and publication of material that violates applicable laws”.

The lawsuit singled out Rahul Shivshankar and Navika Kumar of Times Now, alongside Arnab Goswami and Pradeep Bhandari of Republic TV, for “conducting media trials of Bollywood personalities” and damaging their right to privacy.

To get a sense of how Times Now and Republic TV in particular reported on Rajput’s death and employed the “Justice for SSR” campaign as a tool to defame the film industry without any evidence, watch this episode of TV Newsance.