One of India's fastest-growing financial exchanges “is suing a prominent economist claiming defamation,†Vikas Bajaj wrote in The New York Times. But Ajay Shah, the economist, says “the Multi Commodity Exchange of India is just using legal means to quiet a critic.â€
“The case has raised fresh concerns about colonial-era laws that give significant power to policy makers, companies and individuals to muzzle critics and those they consider offensive,†Mr. Bajaj wrote.
“It has become a tool for intimidation,†said Karuna Nundy, a lawyer who has defended defamation cases but is not involved in Mr. Shah's cases.
The lawsuits follow a long tradition of Indian companies using defamation laws to punish journalists when their reputations have been attacked or to pre-empt attacks.
In 1998, Reliance Industries, one of India's largest conglomerates, obtain ed a court injunction against the publication of “The Polyester Prince,†a book about the rise of the company's founder Dhirubhai Ambani. Last year, an education company sued the magazine The Caravan, and secured a court order requiring it to remove an unflattering profile of the firm and its founder, Arindam Chaudhuri, from its Web site.
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