904-NMS-1220-15-F4.DOC information even a few seconds or milliseconds ahead of the rest of the market. 10. This, the NSE now says, is entirely impossible. Paragraph 18A of the plaint reads thus: “18A. The Plaintiff states that the allegation that some trading members got advantage with connivance of the Plaintiff over others is false. It is impossible for any trading member to ensure a particular position in a queue in the port since such a position is automatically allocated by the network card and cannot be tweaked manually. There are maximum 30 trading members per port. The time lag between the first person and the last person (depending on the load) is maximum 50 micro seconds (1 micro second = 1 millionth of a second) which by no stretch of imagination can confer any advantage to any person.” 11. This paragraph forms the centre of NSE’s case in defamation. For, as Dr. Tulzapurkar puts it, if it is just not possible that the time lag is sufficient for any person to give any such advantage, then there is no question of there being the slightest element of truth in what the Defendants alleged. There is also then no question that their articles are per se defamatory. To the extent that their articles are contradicted by paragraph 18A of the plaint, the articles cannot be fair comment and no qualified privilege attaches to them. Any such privilege, Dr. Tulzapurkar submits, must be “relevant to the occasion”. It cannot be absolute and there is no absolute privilege that attaches to any such article. 10 of 30 ::: Uploaded on - 10/09/2015 ::: Downloaded on - 03/02/2020 18:08:37 :::