Owner and Wadia Group Chairman Nusli Wadia has withdrawn criminal defamation suits registered against Tata Sons’ Chairman Emeritus Ratan Tata and other leaders in 2016, including a petition that queried ₹3,000-crore in damages.
The Bench managed by Chief Justice of India SA Bobde authorized Wadia to withdraw the appeal and the suit seeking vandalism.
Earlier on January 6, while hearing the matter, the Bench — also including Justices BR Gavai and Surya Kant — had urged the parties to resolve their disputes as two mature people who should discuss and settle the issue. The apex court was hearing the matter after the Bombay High Court had canceled defamation actions by Wadia against the Tatas last year.
Earlier, SC Chief Justice Sharad Arvind Bobde urged Tata and Wadia to settle the defamation case, seeking. Naming the two as “mature people” being directors in their own right, Bobde questioned why it was not possible to resolve it.
Nusli Wadia had filed a wrongful defamation case against Ratan Tata and 11 board members and officials in 2016 after he was dismissed from the councils of Tata Motors, Tata Steel and Tata Chemicals. Wadia affirmed that Tata defamed him printing and circulating silly, baseless and libelous stuff about him, while Tata had claimed that Wadia was working with former Chairman of Tata group Cyrus Mistry against the benefit of the company.
Abhishek Manu Singhvi, who appeared for the Tata group stated that the suit was a consequence of a fall-out in a corporate conflict. In 2018, a Mumbai magistrate court published reports to Ratan Tata and the others. Tata addressed the Mumbai High Court that canceled the order. Following the decision, Wadia left the Supreme Court.
The court on Monday told senior advocate C A Sundaram, appearing for Wadia, that court apprehends his client for the answer.
