Lavasa Corp wins libel against 'London Times'

Lavasa Corporation has won a £30,000 compensation from The Times Newspapers of London, after the newspaper accepted that it had carried an article with incorrect information.

Lavasa Corporation, an arm of leading construction firm Hindustan Construction Company, said the proceeds would be donated to the Christel House School, Lavasa, which provides education to the poor children from villages around Lavasa, near Pune.

The out-of-court settlement was reached in front of the royal courts of justice on November 17, after the Times agreed to publish a correction to its first article that was headlined as 'Oxford dragged into Indian land-grab row', a statement from Lavasa said today.

The company will be receiving the payment towards legal fees, it added.

The Sunday Times had earlier reported that while constructing the Lavasa City project, Lavasa had cut down millions of trees, benefited from the fraudulent land procurement and had used armed employees to force farmers in the area to sell their land.

Christel House Lavasa was jointly started with Christel House India and Lavasa Corp to provide education to the underprivileged kids from villages around Lavasa. The school was formally inaugurated last week by school founder Christel DeHaan, though it was functioning from this July.

Meanwhile, Lavasa received SEBI nod for its Rs2,000 crore IPO yesterday.