Journalist obtains order ahead of appeal
The Court of Appeal today ordered a claimant with the title, His Holiness Baba Jeet Singh Ji Maharaj, to lodge £250,000 in court or his appeal due to be heard on 28 February or 1 March, before a court including the Master of the Rolls, would be dismissed.
Baba Jeet Singh Ji Maharaj issued libel proceedings in 2007 in respect of an article published by Eastern Media Group in The Sikh Times and written by Hardeep Singh Sahota. EMG settled in 2008 and the case proceeded to trial against Mr Sahota in May 2010. On the first day of the trial, Eady J ordered a stay of the action on the basis that the subject- matter was non-justiciable. The Judge refused permission to appeal, as did Laws LJ on paper. On a renewed application, where it was conceded that Eady J’s judgment was substantially correct, Smith LJ gave permission to appeal in part.
Today, Mr Sahota applied for an order for security for the costs of the appeal and below.
The Court of Appeal (Sedley and Pitchford LLJ) read a letter from Baba Jeet Singh Ji Maharaj’s solicitors, Ford and Warren, setting out that they did not have instructions for the application or the appeal and were applying to come off the record. The Court considered that it was just in this case to order security against this appellant, who lives in India, having regard to the difficulties of enforcing any costs order in India, the length of time it could take to enforce and the merits of the appeal.
5RB’s Adam Speker appeared as sole counsel for Hardeep Singh Sahota (instructed by Carter-Ruck).
Links
- Victory in sight for Hardeep Singh in libel tourism battle – Press Gazette