Zoho moves defamation suit against Flexype Technologies for Rs 10crore damages

CHENNAI: Madras high court on Friday granted leave to Zoho Corporation to initiate a Rs 10crore civil damages suit against Flexype Technologies over an alleged defamatory post in social media relating to Zoho's accounting software.

Justice Senthilkumar Ramamoorthy, who initially raised concerns over jurisdiction in view of an additional affidavit filed by Zoho explaining how the defamatory post affected its reputation among users in Chennai, observed: “Upon considering the draft plaint and the additional affidavit, it appears that a part of the cause of action arose in Chennai, as the plaintiff asserts that it has a large number of users in Chennai. Therefore, this application is allowed, granting leave to the applicant to sue the respondents before this court.”

The suit has been posted for hearing on April 22.

The issue pertains to a social media post made by Azeem Hussain, co-founder of Flexype Technologies, commenting on the reliability of Zoho’s accounting software. According to Zoho, although the issue was clarified during its internal investigation, Azeem Hussain continued to publish and spread the claims on social media platforms.

Aggrieved, Zoho has moved the high court seeking directions to Flexype to pay Rs 10 crore as compensation for reputational damage and to grant a permanent injunction for the removal of all alleged defamatory content, including the social media post, and to restrain them from publishing any such statements in the future.