A senior Air India executive has won a libel case against a British eveninger over false accusations that he sexually harassed a female colleague and was a 'serial sex pest'.

Captain Ashwini Kumar Sharma, an army captain and former aide-de-camp to the Indian president who is now an executive director of the airline at its Mumbai headquarters, has been awarded 85,000 pounds in damages and 500,000 pounds in cost.

However, the High Court judge granted a "stay" on payment, pending a possible application by the newspaper for permission to appeal.

Hailing the verdict Capt Sharma said, "I am delighted to have been totally vindicated. There was not a shred of truth in any of the allegations made against me. This is exactly what I said on the day the article was published."

"I am extremely grateful to my legal team and to the jury and the justice process in this country," he said.

During the eight-day trial, Capt Sharma, who was the Regional Director of Air India in charge of UK and Ireland, said: "the grossly defamatory and fundamentally false" front page article in The Evening Standard headlined Sex Shame of Airline Chief, damaged both his reputation and health.

His lawyer Ian Winter told the court, the August 2006 article led to his client being shunned in Britain, where he had wanted to make his home with his wife and two grown-up children.

"In short, his world fell apart. He was unable to sleep or eat properly and fell into depression. In the following six months, he lost 10 kilograms in weight and was prescribed Diazepam (Valium) for anxiety and insomnia," Winter told the court.

The article appeared shortly before the end of Capt Sharma's four-year tenure in London.

Police told Sharma, that a female ground services employee had made a complaint against him, but an investigation saw no charges brought, Winter told the court.

Yet The Evening Standard article inferred he was guilty of harassment of such seriousness that it led to his dismissal and he only escaped further action because of his political connections, he said.

Associated Newspapers, the media group that owns The Evening Standard as well as the Daily Mail newspaper, denied libel arguing that the article was substantially true.

They accepted that Sharma was not forced to step down, did not resign, had not faced harassment charges at the time or had been protected by anyone.

But while it did not say the 53-year-old was guilty of a...

Courtesy : FINANCIALEXPRESS.COM

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) is seen following Tuesday's rise in banks' reserve requirements with another increase in coming months to tame inflation, but interest rates are unlikely to be increased, a Reuters poll shows.

Nine out of 11 analysts expected the RBI to raise the cash reserve ratio (CRR), the percentage of deposits banks need to keep with it, again in 2008, with forecasts ranging from 25 to 100 basis points.

"It's contingent on the kind of liquidity we are likely to see in the next three to six months. I don't see one till the next policy," Abheek Barua, chief economist with HDFC Bank, said.

None of the analysts expected the central bank to change the repo rate , at which it lends to banks, or the reverse repo rate , its short-term borrowing rate.

In its policy review on Tuesday, the central bank raised the CRR by 25 basis points to 8.25 percent, its highest level in seven years, with effect from May 24, and it signalled it was ready to act again to rein in inflation, which is running at three-year highs above 7 percent.

Tuesday's increase was the second this month. On April 17, the RBI announced a two-stage 50 basis point increase in the CRR. The first leg kicked in on April 26, while the next takes effect on May 10.

The central bank left the repo rate, now at 7.75 percent and reverse repo at 6.0 percent, unchanged at Tuesday's review. It has kept the repo rate steady since March 2007.

Courtesy : FINANCIALEXPRESS.COM