Political parties should seriously consider amending the criminal defamation law with a unanimous resolution.
NEW DELHI: The Surat court’s recent verdict on Rahul Gandhi needs to remind of cases related to laws on criminal defamation and challenged in the Supreme Court. At the same time, journalists like us raised this issue several times to amend this law and abolish the provision of criminal offence and jail for two years. As an office bearer of the Editors’ Guild of India, we also held seminars and discussions with legal experts, judges and Union Law Ministers since 2006. We also discussed this issue with Chief Justice K.G. Balakrishnan and other senior judges. They assured to consider our request at the appropriate time in the highest court.
A major initiative of the Guild was the dialogue process with the higher judiciary. Media has been agitated over the increasing tendency of the judiciary to seek curbs and with the cooperation of Chief Justice K.G. Balakrishnan and senior Judge Dr Arijit Passayat, the Guild joined hands with the Supreme Court, the Press Council of India and the Indian Law Institute to organise a two-day workshop on “Reporting of Court Proceedings and Administration of Justice”. Over 150 journalists participated in the workshop which saw a frank exchange of views between 14 judges of the Supreme Court, law officers of the government, top editors of the country and senior lawyers.
Our demand continued and some times, political leaders and eminent lawyers also filed appeals to abolish the criminal clause of defamation law. But in 2016, the Supreme Court upheld the constitutional validity of the country’s colonial-era criminal defamation laws, ruling that they are not in conflict with the right to free speech. Explaining the interplay of defamation and free speech rights, the apex court concluded there will be “no chilling” effect on the latter because of criminal sanctions. Dissent is required, but it does not grant an unfettered right to damage a reputation,” said a bench comprising Justices Dipak Misra and Prafulla C. Pant. “One is bound to tolerate criticism, dissent and discordance, but not expected to tolerate defamatory attack,” the apex court said. The court described freedom of expression as a “highly treasured value under the Constitution”. Then, it added a caveat. “Notwithstanding the expansive and sweeping ambit of freedom of speech, as with all rights, the right to freedom of speech and expression is not absolute. It is subject to imposition of reasonable restrictions,” the judgement said. The court said that the reputation of a person is an integral part of the right to life granted under Article 21 of the Indian Constitution. Under Sections 499 and 500 of the Indian Penal Code, defamation is a criminal offence. Defamatory acts can include “words either spoken or intended to be read”, signs or visible representations, which are published or put up in the public domain. The offence is punishable with up to two years imprisonment, a fine or both.
Justice Deepak Mishra’s judgment refusing to de-criminalise defamation in the Subramanian Swamy case was delivered in May 2016. This was the second attempt to decriminalise defamation. In the first round, N. Ravi, a former editor of The Hindu, filed a writ petition in 2004 challenging the continuation of the criminal defamation provisions in the statute book. As chief minister of Tamil Nadu, J. Jayalalithaa had pulverized her critics, including The Hindu, with criminal defamation charges.
Now, the Surat District Court has held Congress MP Rahul Gandhi guilty in the criminal defamation case filed against him over his alleged “Modi surname” remark. The Surat District Court sentenced Congress MP Rahul Gandhi to two years of imprisonment in the criminal defamation case filed against him over his alleged “Modi surname” remark. The court of Chief Judicial Magistrate H.H. Varma, which held Gandhi guilty under Indian Penal Code Section 499 and Section 500, also granted him bail and suspended the sentence for 30 days to allow him to appeal in a higher court, the Congress leader’s lawyer Babu Mangukiya said. However, on Friday, Rahul Gandhi was disqualified as Lok Sabha MP. Gandhi was an MP from the Wayanad seat in Kerala.
The case was filed against Rahul Gandhi for his alleged “how come all the thieves have Modi as the common surname?” remark on a complaint lodged by BJP MLA and former Gujarat minister Purnesh Modi. The Lok Sabha MP from Wayanad made the alleged remarks while addressing a rally at Kolar in Karnataka ahead of the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. Gandhi had appeared before the Surat court in the case, filed under Indian Penal Code (IPC) Sections 499 and 500 (dealing with defamation), in October 2021 to record his statement. In his complaint, BJP MLA Purnesh Modi alleged that Gandhi, while addressing the poll rally in 2019, defamed the entire Modi community by purportedly saying, “How come all the thieves have Modi as the common surname?” Purnesh Modi was a minister in the first tenure of the Bhupendra Patel government.
The Congress dubbed the conviction of Rahul Gandhi by the Surat court as an “infirm, erroneous and unsustainable judgment” that will be immediately challenged in a higher court and expressed hope that it will be stayed and quashed soon.
Rahul Gandhi is a senior leader of the Congress. He can fight on the streets and in the courts with the top most lawyers, but if criminal defamation laws continue in the coming years, editors-journalists can get the same type of judgment from any Indian court. In my book “Power, Press and Politics” also, I devoted one chapter to the media and judiciary. There, I have mentioned that media as an institution of civil society complements the judiciary as a vital pillar in a democratic setup. While the judiciary is accountable to the law of the land and to society for its judgments, the media is also accountable to the public for whom it acts as a watchdog. In fact, earlier some senior leaders used to tell me in informal chats that the media should be more careful and should also face such laws if they violate the “Laxman Rekha”. Lawmakers never tried to abolish this draconian law of the British era. Hope and wish now all political parties will seriously consider our demand and amend the criminal defamation law with a unanimous resolution.
The author is Editorial Director of ITV Network-India News and Aaj Samaj Dainik.