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India TV to sue STAR India over KBC issue

Looks like things are certainly heating up between Indian news broadcaster India TV and STAR TV with legal notices being issued.

The Rajat Sharma promoted India TV has filed a law suit notice on STAR India Private Limited and on Mumbai Mirror newspaper, challenging an ‘admission of guilt apology’ for booming an article, which India TV cities as an insulting, offensive, slanderous and untrue on actuality.

Singh & Singh (Maninder Singh and Pratibha Singh) have send the notices, it has been time-honored to Meenal Baghel, Editor, Mumbai Mirror; Subhash K Jha, Senior Journalist for a column article; Sameer Nair, COO, STAR India; and Deepak Sehgal, EVP-Content, STAR India.

It all happened with an article (article name: We’ll Sue Them) carried by Mumbai Mirror on 28th January, written by Jha. In the article Samir Nair amused as India TV as Scam, he continued “What are these people (India TV) talking about? Everything on KBC was done according to the rules. The funniest thing was, they were offering a flat-screen TV to their viewers for sending SMS about the so called scam on KBC. So much for their so-called noble intentions. We’re certainly looking at serious legal action. The channel heads are having serious discussion on it.”

Deepak Segal, was more indignant then he said. “No one from this channel tried to contact any of us at STAR before going on air with this outrageous story, Isn’t that ridiculous? This is just a fledgling channel’s desperate efforts to get viewers. What do they mean by questioning a contestant’s right to participate twice on the show? Of course anyone can participate twice! It’s part of our rules. No contestant can come on the hot seat twice. If a contestant makes several attempts and he succeeds twice, that’s his good luck. Who are we to grudge him that joy? Those pictures of the same contestant appearing twice that they’re showing to prove their point have been released by us. Anyway, our whole selection process is audited by a reliable agency.”

India TV has demanded an unconditional apology to the channel from all the respondents for publishing the impugned article and also publish the same at the prominent place in the same newspaper within a period of 48 hours from the date of the receipt of the notice.

“We carefully examined the article and when we were convinced the claims were misleading and false, we issued the notices, We found that the claims made in the article about India TV were misleading and not substantiated by our credibility. And when these facts were brought to our notice, we invoked provisions of the law. We continue to stick to our KBC story.” Says Chintamani Rao, CEO, India TV.

The Story So Far
India TV:
No contestant is permitted to participate in KBC twice, yet there have been people who have done so.

STAR TV:
There’s no rule against contestants taking part as many times as they wish. The rule goes that one contestant can only sit in the hot seat once, and the rule has been followed.

India TV:
MTNL employees aren’t permitted to take part in KBC, yet they’ve done so.

STAR TV:
Only Airtel and Star employees aren’t allowed to participate in KBC. There is no bar on MTNL employees.

India TV:
KBC was pulled off due to the above mentioned ‘scams’.

STAR TV:
KBC was terminated due to Amitabh Bachchan’s ill health.