Madras HC reserves verdict on ex-IPS officer's plea in defamation suit filed by MS Dhoni

Chennai, Oct 14 (IANS) The Madras High Court on Tuesday reserved its verdict on an appeal filed by retired IPS officer G. Sampath Kumar, challenging the dismissal of his plea to reject a Rs 100-crore defamation suit filed against him by former Indian cricket team captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni.

A Division Bench comprising Justices S.M. Subramaniam and M. Jothiraman reserved judgment after hearing senior counsel P.R. Raman for Dhoni and advocate R.C. Paul Kanagaraj for the retired officer. The appeal was filed against a 2021 order of a single judge who refused to strike out Dhoni’s defamation claim.

Dhoni had moved the High Court in 2014 seeking Rs 100 crore in damages from Zee Media Corporation, journalist Sudhir Chaudhary, then IPS officer Sampath Kumar, and News Nation Network, for allegedly dragging his name into the Indian Premier League (IPL) betting and spot-fixing controversy.

In 2021, Sampath Kumar filed an application seeking to have the plaint rejected, but Justice N. Seshasayee (since retired) dismissed the plea on December 9, 2021, stating that it had been filed seven years after the suit was instituted and just before the trial was scheduled to begin.

The judge observed that while procedural law allows the filing of such applications at any stage, courts must guard against litigants misusing procedural rights to delay justice.

Justice Seshasayee remarked that the officer appeared to have “suddenly woken up” to a procedural right on the eve of trial, adding that his departmental exoneration could only serve as a defence during the trial, not as a ground to reject the plaint outright.

The court noted that judges have a duty to balance litigants’ procedural rights with the judiciary’s responsibility to prevent delays and ensure timely justice.

Although the application was dismissed in 2021, the trial in the defamation suit did not begin until August 11, 2025, when Justice C.V. Karthikeyan directed the commencement of proceedings and appointed an advocate commissioner to record Dhoni’s evidence. Following this, Sampath Kumar filed the present appeal along with a plea to condone the delay in challenging the earlier order.

After hearing both sides on Tuesday, the Division Bench reserved its verdict.

--IANS

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