Wadia case affidavit

Following an affidavit filed in the Bombay High Court (BHC) by Ravi Bajaj in November 2015, industrialist Nusli Wadia pardoned the editor of the defunct newspaper, The Daily, and on December 15, 2015 he requested the court to remove Bajaj’s name from the list of defendants, mentions The Economic Times (ET). Wadia, however, told the Metropolitan Magistrate that there would be no out of court settlement with the other respondents, the newspaper reported on December 16.
The matter of the criminal defamation case filed by Wadia in 1993 was dismissed by the Esplanade Metropolitan Magistrate’s Court 15 years ago and subsequently reopened by the BHC in September 2015. The case was filed against The Daily, its managing editor Bajaj, printer Phiroze Dastur and publisher Mohan Nair over reports alleging that Wadia was a spy of a foreign country (see "Wadia case reopened,” Events and Personalities, Parsiana, November 21, 2015). The newspaper, founded by flamboyant journalist Russi Karanjia, was last owned by industrialist Kamal Morarka.

Nusli Wadia: exonerating the editor

On November 23, 2015, ET had noted that Bajaj’s reports in The Daily allegedly stemmed from the long standing corporate rivalry between Wadia and Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) founder Dhirubhai Ambani. In his affidavit Bajaj had alleged that the reports formed part of a business deal between the newspaper’s owner Morarka who heads the construction and engineering company Gannon Dunkerly, and RIL. Bajaj had been pushed into using them by two public relations officials of RIL, Anthony Jesudasan and Deepak Neogi along with Morarka’s close associate businessman Vijay Kalantri who often gave instructions on his behalf.
The reports alleged that the Bombay Dyeing chairman Wadia, grandson of Mohammad Ali Jinnah, was a Pakistani spy having links with gangster and bomb blast accused Dawood Ibrahim, was involved in smuggling drugs and laundering money through a bank in Nepal. ET notes that one of the reports mentioned Wadia’s alleged association with Pakistani starlet, Anita Ayub. According to Bajaj’s affidavit, a day before the reports were published Kalantri visited his office and handed over papers signed by 72 members of Parliament accusing Wadia of having multiple passports and dealing in drugs, ET mentioned. Bajaj was told that these findings of the Intelligence Bureau had been allegedly received from the RIL office and handed over to Shankar Rao Chavan, the then home minister. The reports, along with their headlines and blurbs, were given to Bajaj by Neogi with instructions that that they be carried verbatim and that if he did not comply someone else in The Daily would, states the financial newspaper. ET reports that Bajaj alleged that there were hints that if he did not oblige he would get into trouble. His wife Amita Nayar Bajaj was then the Delhi bureau chief of The Afternoon, also controlled by Morarka.
As per the affidavit, Bajaj said that some days after the reports appeared, Kalantri asked him to go with him to meet Ambani at the RIL office at Nariman Point where the industrialist complimented him on the reports, notes ET.
When contacted by ET, both Morarka and Kalantri vehemently denied the allegations. "I am not aware of this affidavit,” Morarka told the newspaper. "I am appalled to hear from you that Rajiv Bajaj has said this in the affidavit. This is absolutely untrue. I have never interfered with the editorial functions of my newspapers though I have always given my full support to my editors,” he wrote in an email to ET. Kalantri too sent an email describing the disclosure as "highly imaginative” and saying "I do not recall any such discussion or facilitation nor I had anything to do with The Daily.”