IN THE COURT OF MR.

MAZHAR FAREED ALI

LEARNED ADDITIONAL DISTRICT JUDGE, RAWALPINDI

In Re:

Medical Transcription and Billing Company (MTBC)

Vs.

Saif Ullah

SUIT FOR RECOVERY OF DAMAGES FOR DEFAMATION

UNDER SECTION 3, 4 & 9 OF THE DEFAMATION ORDINANCE, 2002

WRITTEN STATEMENT

The Defendant respectfully submits as follows:

Preliminary Objections:

i. That Plaintiff has failed to specify any defamatory material and the suit contains
unfounded generalized allegations. The Plaint does not disclose any cause of
action. The suit is liable to be dismissed.

ii. That the case is counter blast of Defendant’s application dated 7-11-2019 in the
Police Station, Sadiqabad for registration of case against officials of Plaintiff-
company. Background of this application has been provided in Para 2 (on Facts) of
the Written Statement.

iii. That the suit is barred by law.

iv. That the suit is not maintainable in its present form.

v. That no defamation is made out against Defendant.

vi. That the mandatory requirements of O.XXIX, R.1 of CPC have not been fulfilled
while filing this case. Therefore, the suit is not maintainable.

vii. That the case has been filed by a dubious/anonymous person. The person who
has signed and verified the Plaint and signed the Vakalatnama is
unnamed/unidentified.
viii. That the suit has been filed incompetently. The person filing the suit has no
authority to file the suit. The suit is liable to be dismissed.

ix. That the Resolution of Board has been signed by GM of the Company. It has not
been passed in accordance with the law. Unidentified Person, who filed suit, does
not possess authorization from Board of Directors to act and file suit on behalf of
Plaintiff. The suit is liable to be dismissed.

x. That the suit has been filed on basis of a forged/fake and/or suspicious Board
Resolution. The Resolution has allegedly been passed by
dubious/unidentified/unnamed person(s) in favour of dubious/unidentified/
unnamed person. Interestingly, as alleged by the Plaint, the cause of action to
Plaintiff firstly accrued on 9-11-2019, but the Board Resolution to file this case
was passed a day before i.e. on 8-11-2019.

xi. That mandatory requirement of S.8 of the Defamation Ordinance, 2002 of filing
case after giving “fourteen days notice”. Plaintiff, as per Plaint, served Legal Notice
on 8-11-2019 (received by Defendant on 10-11-2019) and filed present suit on 11-
11-2019. Also, the legal notice did not specify any defamatory material.

xii. That Plaintiff has not specified any defamatory material in the Plaint. Even
otherwise no defamation is made out against Defendant.

xiii. That Plaintiff has no cause of action against Defendant. Hence, the suit is liable to
be dismissed.

xiv. That the suit is false and frivolous and has been instituted with mala fide
intentions to harass and blackmail the Defendant.

xv. That Plaintiff has not come to this Honorable Court with clean hands and thus,
Plaintiff is not entitle to any relief.

xvi. That the suit of the Plaintiff is based on its imaginative fancy flights, far from
reality, a bundle of lies and thus, an exercise in futility which is liable to rejected
forthwith.

xvii. That the Plaintiff is estopped by his conduct and words to pursue the matter
against Defendant.
 xviii. That Defendant was not the author statement complained of. Also the comments,
if any other, were fair and in the public interest and were an expression of opinion
and not an assertion of fact and were published in good faith. The statement, if
there was any made by Defendant, was based on truth and was made for the
public good.

xix. That the suit has been brought to pressurize Defendant and other employees in
order to contain them from demanding their dues from Company.

xx. That the contents of the Plaint have not been verified in accordance with O.VI,
R.15 of CPC. Hence, the Plaint is liable to be rejected.

xxi. That the suit has not been properly valued.

On Facts:

1. That Para No. 1 is not correct to the extent of passing of resolution and competency
of the unidentified person. Objections in this regard have been raised by Defendant in
Para (vi) to (x) of Preliminary Objections which may be considered integral part of
response to this Para. In view of said objections, this Para is not admitted.

2. That Para No. 2 is denied to the extent of Plaintiff’s claim as to ‘high respect, honour
and reputation in the society and abiding the law’. It is submitted that Plaintiff-
company has been refusing payment of dues to a number of employees including
Defendant. Plaintiff has launched an organized campaign to pressurize and harass
Defendant and other employees in order to contain them from demanding their
dues. Plaintiff-company snatched Defendant’s passport and Defendant has to take
help from police to recover same. Plaintiff communicates threatening messages to
Defendant via other employees. Plaintiff sends fake FIA guys to threaten Defendant.
Plaintiff-company even resorted to criminal acts in order to contain Defendant and
other employees. The incident of 7-11-2019 is glaring example of Plaintiff-company’s
criminal behavior whereby Plaintiff-company sent Muhammad Ilyas (Commando),
Chief Security Officer of MTBC along with one Waheed (an ex-IB official and father of
Plaintiff’s employee Naveed Shehzad, Project Manager), to wrongfully restrain
Defendant for several minutes on gun-point and intimidate Defendant with life
threats by pointing gun at person of Defendant. As Defendant called Police Helpline
 15, the Commando and fake FIA officer fled away from the scene. Defendant reported
the matter to police, which due to Defendant’s influence was reluctant to take action
against Plaintiff. Defendant has thus approached the court of law/Justice of Peace for
registration of FIR. This matter is now sub judice and will be decided in due course. All
these actions are not of a respectable and law abiding person. Hence, Plaintiff’s
representation as to ‘high respect, honour and reputation in the society and abiding
the law’ are incorrect and vehemently denied.

3. That Para No. 3 is correct. This Para is admitted.

4. That Para No. 4 is correct. This Para is admitted too. It is however submitted that
Plaintiff has not violated any of term and conditions of NCCA.

5. That Para No.5 is a bundle of lies. In Para 6 of the Plaint, Plaintiff represents that
Defendant resigned from job on 11-9-2019 (the truth of the matter is Plaintiff
wrongfully terminated Defendant and expelled him from office on 11-9-2019). How
can Defendant change login credentials of Plaintiff’s client on 2-10-2019 when
Defendant has already left job on 11-9-2019? Even otherwise, this suit has not been
brought on breach of NCCA; therefore, this Para is irrelevant. The Para is denied in
toto.

6. That this Para is correct to the extent of serving of Legal Notice dated 12-10-2019
which was done as part of Plaintiff’s campaign to harass and blackmail Defendant.
Rest of the Para, as outlined in response to Para 5, is false, frivolous and self-
contradictory. In view of what has been submitted in response to Para 5, this Para too
is denied.

7. That Para No. 7 is incorrect. Plaintiff has not specified any facebook post which
caused defamation. Also Plaintiff has not specified any other defamatory material.
There is detail of date and time of publication of the alleged post. Also it is not clear
what did that alleged post say about Plaintiff which may be termed as defamation.
The whole case is bundle of lie. The Para is denied.

8. An email by someone other than Defendant to General Manager of Plaintiff-company

requesting to pay his dues does not entitle Plaintiff to file a suit against Defendant.
The Para is thus denied.
9. That Para No. 8 is incorrect. Defendant has not made any defamatory statement.
Plaintiff has not specified any such statement. No offence of defamation is made out
against Defendant. This Para is based on Plaintiff’s imaginative fancy flights, far from
reality, and a bundle of lies. This Para is denied too.

10. That Para No. 9 is false. The Para is imaginative. Defendant has not done anything
alleged in the Para. It is beyond understanding how a company can be subject to
mental torture. Also, Defendant has not done anything with intention to injure
Plaintiff’s reputation. It is however submitted that Plaintiff-company is considered as
notorious among the employees for harassing and blackmailing its employees and
not paying their dues to them.

11. That Para No. 10 is correct to the extent that Plaintiff served a false and frivolous legal
notice which was received by Defendant at his home address. Defendant is not sure
of the correctness of the receipt number mentioned in this Para. Therefore, this Para
is admitted to the extent of serving of legal notice. It is however submitted that
Defendant did not provide opportunity to respond the legal notice and filed this suit
on 11-11-2019 in violation of S.8 of the Defamation Ordinance, 2002 (without
providing 14 days period for responding the notice). On this score alone, the suit is
liable to be dismissed.

12. That Para No. 11 is false. Plaintiff has not published anything defamatory or libelous.
Plaintiff has not suffered any damage or loss of reputation. Plaintiff is not entitled to
any damages. The Para is denied.

13. That Para No. 12 is false. Plaintiff has not suffered any loss. Defendant has not caused
any injury or loss to Plaintiff. Plaintiff is not entitled to any damages. The Para is
denied.

14. That Para No. 13 is false. Defendant has done no wrong to Plaintiff. Plaintiff has
miserably failed to point out/specify any defamatory material against Defendant. In
this Para, Plaintiff claims that Defendant caused defamation by publishing something
in the newspaper. There is no mention of name of newspaper. Also no date of
publication has been provided. Previously, Plaintiff claimed that Defendant
committed defamation by publishing something in Facebook. There are glaring
contradictions in Plaintiff’s stance. The case has been instituted to just waste the time
of this Honorable Court. The Para is denied.
15. That Para No. 14 is false. Plaintiff has got no cause of action against Defendant. The
Para is denied.

16. That jurisdiction of this Honorable Court is admitted.

17. That the Suit has not been properly valued.

PRAYER:

In view of what has been submitted above, it is therefore humbly prayed that present
suit may kindly be dismissed with costs.

Any other relief, this Honorable Court deems fit may also be granted.

DEFENDANT

Through

ABUBAKAR GONDAL GULBAZ MUSHTAQ

Advocate Advocate High Court

JUST & RIGHT LAW FIRM

www.justnright.com
www.facebook.com/justnrightlaw

HEAD OFFICE
H # 721, Street # 44, E-11/3, Islamabad
Phone # +92 (333) 405-7077

VERIFICATION:

Verified on oath at Rawalpindi on this 10th day of

January, 2020 that contents of Para 1 to 13 of this
Written Statement are correct to the best of my
knowledge and contents of Para 14 to 16 are
correct to the best of my information and belief.

DEFENDANT