SHILPA S SHETTY Vs. MAGNA PUBLICATIONS COMPANY LIMITED

JUDGEMENT

(1.) PLAINTIFF is a film actress of some standing. Defendant No. 1 is a Publishing House, defendant No. 2 is its Director and 3rd defendant is the Editor of a film journal brought out by the 1st defendant under the name of "stardust" and defendant No. 4 is one of the contributors and reporters of that Journal. The present suit makes a grievance that three articles published in November and December 2000 and January 2001 Issues of this Journal, which are annexed at Exhibits A, B, and C to the plaint, are per-se defamatory, false and malicious to the plaintiffs character. Hence, this suit is filed to seek damages of Rs. 20 crores. The plaintiff has also taken out a Notice of Motion seeking to restrain the defendants from in any way or manner carrying out defamatory allegations and imputations in future against the defendants.

(2.) MR. Maneshinde has appeared for the plaintiff and has drawn my attention to the statements made in the three articles. These statements are quoted in paragraph 4 of the plaint. They are extracts from the three articles which are annexed as Exhibits A, B and C to the plaint. Prior thereto it is stated in paras 3 and 4 of the plaint that during her career since 1992 the plaintiff acted in a number of films as a lead heroin opposite one Akshay Kumar and fell in love with him. However, the relationship ended abruptly. Her interview appeared in the October 2000 Issue of Stardust which explained her version of this break-up. In the same issue, the interview of this Akshay Kumar was also published giving his version. Thereafter these extracts from Exhibits A to C are quoted. Amongst others it is stated that as per Exhibit A after the break-up with Akshay Kumar, the plaintiff developed a clandestine affair with another actor so much so that she attempted to break-up his relationship with another actress. This trend continues in Exhibit B. The Article which appeared in the December Issue, is at Exhibit B and is written by defendant No. 4. After referring to the alleged relationship with the two actors in bold letters printed on, a question is asked "after all, only men qualify as womanisers. Nobody refers to a woman who changes companions as a maniser, right?". Then there is the reference to the third article (Exhibit C) under the caption Scoop of the mouth Shilpas involvement with a married man. It gives an impression that she is carrying on an adulterous relationship with a married man as stated in para 7 of the plaint.

(3.) MR. Maneshinde submits that these articles bring down the reputation of the plaintiff and since these three articles have appeared one after another, it is time that an injunction ought to be granted against the defendants restraining them through the prayer which is made in the Notice of Motion. Mr. Maneshinde has relied upon three unreported judgements in support. Firstly, he relied upon a judgment in Notice of Motion No. 1847 of 1995 in Suit No. 2691 of 1995 (Miss Neelam S. Kothari v. Mr. Ashwin Varde), which was also filed by a film actress and in that suit also the present defendant Nos. 1 and 3 were joined as defendant Nos. 4 and 1 respectively. In that matter also similar article was printed amongst others in the May 1995 Issue of the same Journal under the caption "neelams Steamy Liaison with her Co-Star". An injunction was sought amongst others restraining the defendants from republishing those articles or any defamatory statement about the plaintiff. On behalf of the defendants, a passage from "gatley on Libel and Slander" (eighth edition para 1574) was relied upon as also "press Rule" amongst others. The learned Judge (N. D. Vyas, J. , as he then was) after hearing both the Counsel recorded that in his opinion these three articles which had been printed by the defendants gave a distinct impression that the plaintiff was a promiscuous woman. The learned Judge, therefore, granted an injunction in terms of prayer Clause (a) as prayed excluding the bracketed portion. Mr. Virag Tulzapurkar, learned Counsel appearing for the defendants, points out that bracketed portion was "or any other defamatory statement about the plaintiff". Mr. Tulzapurkar therefore submits that an injunction was granted against republishing these very articles but not a general injunction against any defamatory statement in future. In his submission such an injunction would be a vague and wide one.