Bollywood vs Times Now Settlement: Here's What It Means
34 production houses had filed a suit before the Delhi HC against Times Now & Republic.
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On 12 October last year, a civil suit was filed before the Delhi High Court by four Bollywood industry associations and 34 production houses against Republic TV, Times Now, social media platforms and unknown defendants to refrain from making or publishing irresponsible, derogatory and defamatory remarks against Bollywood.
Now, the Producers Guild of India and Times Network have issued a joint statement saying that they have 'settled the matter'. Since the suit was a civil one and not a criminal suit, the parties opted for an out-of-court settlement in this case.
"This refers to the Suit (CS OS No 337 of 2020) filed in the Delhi High Court by four film associations and 34 production houses against certain television news channels, editors and anchors including TIMES NOW. The plaintiffs and TIMES NOW are pleased to confirm that they have settled the matter, and the application for settlement along with Consent Terms is pending for acceptance before the Delhi High Court", the statement reads.
The statement adds that the channel has agreed not to carry anything defamatory on the Hindi film industry. "As per the consent terms agreed, TIMES NOW reaffirms its commitment to abide by the Programme Code under the Cable Television Network (Regulation) Act, 1995, and the Cable Television Network Rules, 1994 and undertakes not to publish or air anything that is defamatory to the Hindi film industry on the TIMES NOW channel".
Among the studios that had filed the petition were Shah Rukh Khan's Red Chillies Entertainment, Salman Khan Films, Aamir Khan Productions, Ajay Devgn Films, Karan Johar's Dharma Productions, Anushka Sharma’s Clean Slate Filmz, Zoya Akhtar’s Tiger Baby and Farhan Akhtar's Excel Entertainment. Arnab Goswami and Pradeep Bhandari from Republic TV and Rahul Shivshankar and Navika Kumar from Times Now were named in the petition.
What is Programme Code?
Programme Code is a set of guidelines or a code of ethics given under the Cable TV Regulation Act, that channels have to follow whenever they are airing any content. One of the guidelines states that any content which is defamatory in nature cannot be aired.
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