'Genuine assessment of State of Affairs of Administration not amount to Defamation': HC quashes Defamation Case against 'Rediff' for article on Jayalalitha [Read Order}

Observing that reporting on State of Affairs of Administration doesn't not amount to Defamation, the Madras High Court has quashed the Criminal Defamation Case Rediff.com filed by the State Govt.

Making the Chairman, Editor-in-Chief, Associate Editor and reporter of Rediff.com parties to the Case, the State Govt raised objection on a Rediff news article published on July 10, 2015 accusing the media of not reporting widely about the then Chief Minister Jayalalithaa's failing health.

The single-Judge bench of Justice P. N. Prakash wasn't clearly convinced with the submissions of the Public Prosecutor and was of the opinion that an allegedly defamatory article should be read as a whole and not in bits and pieces.

"A genuine assessment of the state of affairs of the administration at a given point of time cannot amount to defamation", said the bench.

The Court was for the 'Right to Freedom of Speech and Expression' and thus expressed:

"'Right to free speech and expression' guaranteed under Article 19(1)(a) of the Constitution of India, is so sacrosanct, though, it can be restricted on the grounds set out in Article 19(2) of the Constitution of India. The press has a duty to keep the public informed about the happenings in the administration of the State. If this freedom is stifled, rumours and gossip will masquerade as truth."

Noting that the article poses no defamation and merely asks questions on insufficient reporting of certain incidents by the Media, the bench discarded the allegation leveled.

It further noted that the article does not refer to any particular ailment of the Chief Minister or make any disparaging remark about her health.

It said:

"The above article has been addressed to the Chennai press and a question has been posed to them as to why they are not properly reporting about the health of the Chief Minister. The fact that the Chief Minister was not well, was so obvious, when on May 23, 2015, twenty eight Ministers took oath in two batches at a stretch, which was unprecedented",

In the complaint filed, the State Govt has alleged the Media Agency (Rediff.com) for defaming the then Chief Minister Ms.J.Jayalalithaa in respect of conduct in the discharge of her public functions and thus pressed charges under under Section 499 r/w 500 IPC.

However, the High Court during the present hearing concluded that the impugned article cannot be attributed as defamatory of the then Chief Minister Ms.J.Jayalalithaa and thus discharged the petitioners.

In similar instance, the Madras HC in May had quashed the Criminal Defamation cases filed against a group of editors and journalists such as N Ram, Editor-in-Chief of The Hindu, Siddharth Varadarajan, Nakkeeran Gopal etc for their reports against Jayalalilathaa's government.

The High Court thus made a salient observation:

"The State should not be impulsive like an ordinary citizen in defamation matters and invoke section 199(2) Cr.P.C. to throttle democracy. Only in cases where there is foolproof material and when launching of prosecution under section 199(2) Cr.P.C. is inevitable, the said procedure can be invoked",

The judgement has been delivered by a single-Judge bench of Justice P. N. Prakash on 15-10-2020.

Read Judgement Here:

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