Table of Contents
Indian billionaire M.A. Yusuff Ali, chairman of Abu Dhabi-based retailer LuLu Group, will not withdraw his defamation cases against those accused of attacking his reputation, including a ₹10 crore ($1.05 million) suit, even though one of the defendants has publicly apologized.
LuLu Group said on Nov. 11 that the cases will continue in the Indian courts despite a public apology from Shajan Skariah, the editor of Malayalam news portal Marunadan Malayali. V. Nandakumar, LuLu's director of global marketing and communications, said the group has full confidence in India's judicial system and will let the courts decide.
Yusuff Ali is seeking ₹10 crore in damages from Skariah, along with a permanent injunction barring him and others from publishing false or defamatory content about LuLu Group.
A long-running fight
The dispute dates back years. In May 2023, the Delhi High Court ordered Marunadan Malayali and Skariah to take down all content published against Yusuff Ali, including on social media, after finding a prima facie case of defamation. The court granted an interim injunction and directed Google and YouTube to remove the material if Skariah did not comply.
In his suit, Yusuff Ali said the portal had been publishing defamatory material about him since 2013. The court said at the time that free speech does not include a right to defame others.
From Kerala to the Gulf
Yusuff Ali, who grew up in Nattika in Kerala's Thrissur district, moved to Abu Dhabi in 1973 to join a family trading business. He built it into LuLu Group, which runs a chain of hypermarkets and supermarkets across the Gulf Cooperation Council countries, as well as shopping malls in India, and employs tens of thousands of people.
LuLu Retail Holdings Plc, the group's supermarket arm, listed on the Abu Dhabi Securities Exchange in November 2024 after an initial public offering that raised $1.72 billion. Forbes lists Yusuff Ali among the world's billionaires, with a fortune built on his control of the group.
Figures were converted at ₹95.2 to the dollar.
The intelligence satisfies curiosity. The paid briefings satisfy strategy.
Every Monday, Elite subscribers receive an Investor Memo breaking down the deal, the structure and the positioning behind the week's most consequential African wealth story — the kind of analysis that doesn't appear anywhere else.
Twice a month, a Wealth Intelligence brief profiles a single billionaire's holdings, cash flows and expansion pipeline in detail no public source matches.
→ Executive ($25/mo): Daily newsletter + Deep-Dive Reports
→ Elite ($75/mo): Everything above + Investor Memos + Wealth Intelligence + Quarterly Analyst Briefings
Subscribe now
