Press Council rejects complaint against BS journalist

The Press Council of India (PCI) has dismissed a complaint by Financial Technologies India (FTIL, now 63 Moons Technologies) and its founder Jignesh Shah against a Business Standard (BS) journalist.

In an order dated June 21, it was held that “The Press Council on consideration of records of the case and report of the inquiry committee accepts reasons, findings and adopts the report of the committee and dismisses the complaint.”

In March 2016, FTIL and Shah moved the press watchdog alleging that BS Associate Editor N Sundaresha Subramanian had published factually inaccurate, biased and prejudiced news items against the complainants. Taking objection to the picture of Shah being carried in news reports related to him, they alleged that the correspondent had adopted “a one-sided and tarnishing approach in covering the story related to Mr Shah in order to defame him.”

The complainants had raised specific issues about three articles published in October 2014, August 2015 and February 2016 and alleged similar misreporting in eight others among over 40 news items published since FTIL’s arm National Spot Exchange (NSEL) plungedinto a ~5,600-crore payment crisis in July 2013.

In reply to a show cause notice, the respondents denied the allegations with supporting documents running into hundreds of pages and said that the complaint was an attempt to browbeat the newspaper from publishing reportage in respect of the NSEL crisis that affected about 13,000 investors.

“As a responsible journalist and as a responsible newspaper, the respondent and his newspaper have scrupulously followed the journalistic ethics and norms in reportage,” they said.