MUMBAI: Bloomberg UTV has sent a defamation notice to CNBC TV18's managing editor Udayan Mukherjee, asking him to apologise on air for allegedly defaming the English business news channel.

The channel, through counsel AZB Partners, accuses Mukherjee for making “inflammatory, derogatory and defamatory” statements during its segment Bazaar on 4 March.

In its notice to Mukherjee, Bloomberg UTV has demanded Rs 5 billion as damages, for the “injury” the channel has “sustained and will continue to sustain” because of his (Mukherjee’s) “malicious acts”.

The notice also accused Mukherjee of debasing Bloomberg UTV by saying "(Bloomberg ko) apni auqaat nahi bhoolna chahiye".

Mukherjee, in his show, had said that for the tenth year running, CNBC TV18 leads across all categories in the genre, and had remained the number one channel on the Budget day, based on Tam data. Earlier, Bloomberg UTV had given full page adverts and run a campaign, claiming leadership on Budget day viewership based on another monitoring agency aMap.

Mukherjee was not available for comment till the time of filing this report.