Defamed whom?

A strange media report in a frontline Chennai-based newspaper has perplexed the new management at the Stock Holding Corporation of India (SHCIL). The agency report quotes Bharat Momaya, referred to as a vice-president of SHCIL, saying that a Mumbai Court has “issued summons to a former member of Singapore Parliament (Ramasamy Ravindran) for allegedly making defamatory statements against” SHCIL. The report attributes the action to SHCIL’s managing director R Jayaraman Iyer, who has been sent on compulsory leave prior to a management change in April. The report says that Ravindran is being sued for making negative comments about the e-stamping business. Ravindran has, in fact, made serious charges against the SHCIL management and sent copies of his statement through his lawyers to the finance minister, the regulators, government investigation agencies as well as the Central Vigilance Commission. The new SHCIL management says that it has neither filed any case nor has the board of directors given any approval for such as case. According to the SHCIL brass, the case has been field by Momaya in his personal capacity, which is very unusual. Momaya, we are told, works for SHCIL Services Ltd (SSL), which was once a fully owned subsidiary of SHCIL but was hijacked by three unknown private entities when 76 per cent of the capital was surreptitiously transferred to them. Ravindran says that he has no knowledge of any summons. On the contrary, he has written to SSL asking why his name continues to appear as a director when he has already resigned and his resignation has been accepted. He has also questioned SSL’s attempt to claim that the e-stamping deal with Crimson Logic was signed in February 2007, although the deal was announced at a well-publicised public function at the Taj Mahal hotel on March 23 , 2006.

... contd.