New Delhi: The Bombay High Court quashed proceedings initiated by a local court against Tata Sons' former chairman Ratan Tata, its current chairman N Chandrasekaran and eight directors of the firm in a criminal defamation case filed by Nusli Wadia. In December 2018, a magistrate court in the city issued notices to Ratan Tata and the others in the criminal defamation case filed by Wadia. Wadia filed the case in 2016 after he was voted out of the boards of some Tata Group companies.
Tata and others then approached the high court seeking to quash and set aside the proceedings initiated against them. A division bench of Justices Ranjit More and Bharati Dangre on Monday quashed and set aside the proceedings. Senior counsel Abhishek Manu Singhvi, appearing for Ratan Tata, earlier told the court that the defamation case was because of a fallout of a corporate dispute. He said the entire case was filed with complete non-application of mind. "The case is only a fallout of a corporate dispute between Ratan Tata and Nusli Wadia, who is a strong supporter of Cyrus Mistry," Singhvi argued.
Wadia, in his complaint before the magistrate, claimed that Tata and others made defamatory statements against him after they removed Cyrus Mistry on October 24, 2016 as the group chairman of Tata Sons. Wadia was on the board as an independent director of group companies like Indian Hotels Company, that runs the Taj group of hotels, TCS, Tata Motors and Tata Steel, among others.