Veerappan’s claim: Actor Sukanya wins defamation case in Madras High Court after 30 years

Nearly 30 years after Sun TV Network had telecast journalist Nakheeran R. Gopal’s 1996 interview with forest brigand Veerappan, the Madras High Court has directed the television network to pay damages of ₹10 lakh to actor R. Sukanya for not having edited out scandalous allegations levelled against her by the interviewee.

Justice K. Kumaresh Babu dismissed a 2015 appeal suit filed by the television network against a decree passed in favour of the actor by a city civil court in Chennai. He held the charge of malice stands proven against the television channel which ought to have verified the contents of the interview before airing it.

The judge pointed out Ms. Sukanya, a popular actor, who also paired opposite Kamal Haasan’s aged character Senapathy in the 1996 blockbuster movie Indian, had initially filed a civil suit before the High Court in 1996 seeking damages of ₹10 lakh from the television network, Mr. Gopal and the forest brigand.

On August 8, 2011, the suit was transferred to the city civil court on the ground of pecuniary jurisdiction. During trial, the television network contended that it had no intention to defame anyone and that it was Mr. Gopal who had approached the channel for telecasting the interview that he had conducted with the forest brigand.

On his part, Mr. Gopal told the court as per a telecast agreement reached between him and the television network, the latter was entitled to edit out any portion of the interview. He added he had given nine hours of footage but the television channel had aired only four hours of it over a period of eight days with each slot running for about 30 minutes a day.

While decreeing the suit in favour of Ms. Sukanya on April 15, 2015, the city civil court had directed the television network to pay her damages of ₹10 lakh. Not finding any reason to interfere with the decree, Justice Babu said, the television channel had not taken diligent steps to verify the contents of the interview despite having reserved an unrestricted right to edit, cut, delete, modify or alter any portion of the interview.

Also finding the television network had expressed regret in a Tamil magazine, after the receipt of a legal notice from Ms. Sukanya, and not in its own channel in which the interview was telecast, the judge wrote: “This itself would show malice on the part of the appellant.”