On May 31, the Zee Media Corporation Limited issued a ‘legal notice for defamation’ to Cobrapost and three other online news outlets, The Wire, The Quint and Bhadas4media, reports state.
The notice comes days after Cobrapost released its sting operation purportedly showing a willingness of media organisations to run polarising Hindutva campaign for a fee.
In the notice to Cobrapost, “Zee Group has asked for the articles to be removed”, an “unconditional apology”, “an assurance that the articles won’t be re-circulated in any form and an assurance that no defamatory content” would be spread against the group, a Zee News report states. “Failing which, ZMCL will be filing both civil and criminal suits,” the report stated.
The notice sent to The Wire is about two articles published by the website on May 26 and May 28 respectively. The notice states that The Wire “reproduced the contents published by Cobrapost without verifying the actual facts”. It also adds, “The false and baseless averments, suggestions and imputations are a result of incorrect and grossly irresponsible reporting and apparent mala fide [intent].” The notice also claims that The Wire reproduced defamatory content in “connivance” with Pushp Sharma (Cobrapost‘s reporter) and Cobrapost.
The notice to Bhadas4media is along similar lines.