IPL betting scam: Madras High Court dismisses Zee Media appeal against questions raised by MS Dhoni in defamation suit

The Madras High Court on Thursday dismissed an appeal by Zee Media Corporation seeking the setting aside of interrogatories raised by cricketer MS Dhoni in his defamation suit filed in 2014 over the Indian Premier League (IPL) betting scam..A Bench of Justices R Mahadevan and Mohammed Shaffiq dismissed the plea by Zee challenging a November 2022 order of a single-judge that had disallowed its prayer to set aside the interrogatories raised by Dhoni.The Court further directed Zee to answer the interrogatories within a period of ten days from the date of its judgment. .The Division Bench held that the single-judge had passed such order only after having "extensively considered the interrogatories and the reply." It, therefore, said that there was no ground for interfering with the single-judge's order. "Considering the materials placed on record in the case on hand and the findings rendered above, we concur with the specific finding given by the learned Judge that the details/material facts required in the interrogatories are not dealt with in the written statement and further, no ground has been made out by the appellant for setting aside the impugned order. In such view of the matter, interrogatories have to be necessarily answered by the appellant/first defendant," the judgment stated..Dhoni had filed a defamation suit in the High Court against Zee Media, IPS officer Sampath Kumar and others over alleged malicious statements and news reports which claimed that he was involved in betting and match fixing of IPL matches in 2013. The former captain of the Indian cricket team sought to restrain the defendants, including Kumar, who initially probed the IPL betting scam, from issuing or publishing defamatory statements against him related to the issue. The High Court had earlier 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. Following the written statements, Dhoni filed an application claiming that Kumar had gone on to make further defamatory statements in his written submissions, and thus prayed that contempt of court proceedings be initiated against Kumar. In July last year, Dhoni also sought the permission of another bench of the High Court to deliver interrogatories - a set of 17 questions to Zee claiming that the written statement filed by the media company was "generalized and did not contain specific responses towards the allegation raised." This plea was allowed by a single-judge..Zee then moved High Court seeking that the order granting leave to Dhoni for delivering the interrogatories be set aside. The media company claimed that the interrogatories mostly contained questions which should be raised during the stage of cross-examination in the trial. It was further submitted that the interrogatories had been delivered with an intention to know Zee's evidence in advance..In an order passed on November 11, 2022, Justice G Chandrasekharan refused to set aside the order allowing the delivery of interrogatories to Zee. The judge held that the interrogatories were raised by Dhoni only with a view to elicit further information on the averments made in Zee's written statement. Zee had then filed the present appeal against the single-judge order. .Advocate Jose John appeared for Zee Media. Senior Advocate PR Raman appeared for MS Dhoni..[Read Judgment]