Lakshmi Venu, TAFE move Bengaluru court for gag order against media over reporting of her marriage dissolution

Lakshmi Venu, vice chairperson of Tractors and Farm Equipment Limited (TAFE) and daughter of TVS Motor Company Chairman Emeritus Venu Srinivasan, has moved a Bengaluru civil court alleging defamatory reporting by media outlets about dissolution of her marriage and seeking removal of such content online.

TAFE has filed a separate suit seeking restrictions on allegedly defamatory reporting concerning the company, its stakeholders and board members, along with removal and de-indexing of specified online content.

The Court heard the matter on October 15 and issued summons and notice in both matters.

However, it did not grant an interim injunction in both suits, saying it was necessary to hear the defendants before deciding the applications for interim relief. It directed issuance of suit summons and emergent notice on the applications, returnable on December 5.

The defendants in the proceeding include Moneycontrol, Financial Express, Times of India, Outlook Business, Lokmat, News24, Kannada Prabha and several other publications.

X Corp, Google LLC, Meta Platforms, Instagram, Facebook and Threads are also named, along with unidentified parties described as “Ashok Kumar John Doe”.

The interim application sought to restrain publication, circulation, sharing, hosting and streaming of allegedly false and unverified news concerning TAFE, its stakeholders and board members.

It sought directions to de-index, de-reference and render specified URLs non-searchable across search engines, internal platform searches, publishers and intermediaries. The reliefs included permanent suppression of the specified content and removal of similar or further links.

Venu additionally sought to restrain publication, reuse or exploitation of material concerning the dissolution of her marriage, including her photographs in that context.

In its separate suit, TAFE sought similar restrictions on reporting and directions for removal and de-indexing of online content. Its application additionally sought to restrain publication of content stating or imputing that the company, its directors, officers or employees indulged in bribery or corruption.

The proceedings come amid a dispute over the division of business interests within Venu Srinivasan’s family, with Lakshmi Venu and her mother Mallika Srinivasan on one side and her father Venu Srinivasan and brother Sudarshan Venu on the other.

While the father-son duo maintain that a settlement has already been reached, Mallika and Lakshmi have contended that no agreement dividing the family’s economic interests has been concluded.

They argue that assigning management roles and agreeing on brand usage and non-compete obligations do not amount to a division of ownership. The Bengaluru court orders do not, however, specify whether the publications challenged in these suits concern that dispute.

Advocate Bharath appeared for Lakshmi Venu and TAFE.