A Delhi Court has issued fresh summons to the news portal The Morning Context, its editors and directors in the criminal defamation complaint filed by OFB Tech Private Limited (OFB) over a news story [OFB Tech Pvt Ltd vs. Slowform Media Pvt Ltd]..In an order passed on May 30, Judicial Magistrate Sukhjeet Singh of the Saket court noted that the accused persons have not appeared before the court till now. Therefore, it said that the summons will be issued to them through all modes through the Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCP). "Let fresh summons be issued to the proposed respondents no. 1 namely Slowform Media Pvt Ltd, no. 2 Aashish K. Mishra, no. 4 Priya Bubna and no. 5 Surender Thirumurthy (through all modes) through DCP concerned," the Court directed on May 30.However, when the matter was called again on June 4 before Link Magistrate Tuhina Mardi, the accused persons failed to appear yet again. She then ordered the police to ensure compliance with the regular judge's order of May 30."Despite service of summons to proposed respondent no. 1, 2 and 5, they have failed to appear. Let previous order be complied afresh for proposed respondent no. 1, 2, 4 and 5(through all modes)," the link Magistrate stated. .OFB claims to be India's biggest business-to-business raw materials and credit platform.Its defamation case pertains to an October 7, 2024 news article authored by Abir Dasgupta (editor at The Morning Context) titled 'OfBusiness co-founders and management allegedly assaulted an employee, says FIR.' The accused in the case include The Morning Context Editor-in-Chief Ashish K Mishra, Editor Abhir Dasgupta and Directors Priya Bubna and Surendar Thirumurthy.The article reported on an incident where a former employee of OFB alleged that he was kidnapped, threatened and physically assaulted at the company’s Gurugram headquarters.The company has argued that The Morning Context article is false and was published without verifying or conducting any proper due diligence to catch eyeballs by maligning the company."This article was viewed by thousands and lakhs of people and was spreading like wildfire. This post/ news article spread across the accused persons platforms is glaringly false, bogus, incriminating, mischievous and malicious and evidently published on multiple platforms only to catch maximum number of eyeballs, thereby intentionally subjecting the complainant to greater public ridicule," OFB said in its plea. The company has argued that the news platform deliberately and intentionally indulged in blatant scandal mongering and they sought to denigrate and harm their impeccable reputation in the public estimation.The criminal complaint was filed through advocates Sanyam Khetarpal and Prakriti Anand..OFB also filed a ₹2 crore defamation suit against The Morning Context in the Delhi High Court.Justice Vikas Mahajan on October 15, 2024 came to a prima facie conclusion that article cannot be protected "under the defences of truth, fair comment and privilege" and thus ordered its take down.The news website was also restrained "from, in any manner, directly or indirectly, publishing, posting, communicating, circulating the impugned Article or any material containing the defamatory imputations made in the impugned Article, till further orders".Advocates Sanyam Khetarpal and Prakriti Anand appeared for OFB.Advocates Jay Bhardwaj and Disha Bajaj appeared for Abir Dasgupta. .[Read Orders]
