The High Court of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh ruled that falsely portraying a person as having terrorist ties inherently harms their reputation. Such misrepresentation, the Court clarified, clearly meets the legal threshold for criminal defamation under law.
The High Court of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh held that falsely describing someone as having ties to terrorists would, on its face, damage that person’s reputation and therefore constitute criminal defamation.
Justice Sanjay Dhar made this observation while hearing a petition by a newspaper’s editor and owner seeking to quash criminal defamation proceedings that arose from a newspaper report.
The contested report allegedly depicted an individual as an overground worker for terrorists. The Court said a plain reading of the article showed its content to be inherently defamatory.
The High Court added,
“Branding a person as an over ground worker of terrorists or stating that the person has links with terrorists ex-facie lowers the image of such person in the estimation of those who knows him,”
The bench also dismissed the defendants’ claim that they lacked any intent to harm the complainant’s reputation.
The Court observed,
“Still then, having regard to the nature of the news item, it can prima facie be stated that they (newspaper representatives) had the knowledge that the said news item would harm the reputation of respondent/complainant,”
The High Court declined to quash proceedings against the newspaper’s editor, finding him accountable for selecting and publishing newspaper content.
However, the court agreed to drop the criminal defamation case against the paper’s owner, accepting the submission that there was no material to show he controlled the selection of the disputed article.
The matter began with a complaint that a Dainik Jagran article portrayed a private individual as an overground worker for militants and alleged he had assisted militants in attacks on security forces.
The complainant maintained the story was false and fabricated, and that its publication gravely harmed his standing in the community and among relatives and acquaintances.
The complainant also said that despite receiving a legal notice demanding an apology, the publishers did not retract or clarify the report, which prompted the filing of a criminal defamation complaint in the trial court.
The trial magistrate took cognizance, and while the trial was pending the paper’s owner, Sanjay Gupta, and editor, Abhimanyu Sharma, petitioned the High Court to quash the proceedings.
Their counsel argued the story was already in the public domain and was based on information from the agency investigating militant attacks, including the Nagrota incident.
He further contended the publication fell within the ambit of freedom of speech and expression, and the petitioners had no intention of harming the complainant’s reputation. It was also argued that the owner was only responsible for the publication’s overall policy while editorial staff decided what to publish, so proceedings against the owner were not sustainable.
The complainant’s counsel opposed the petition, stressing the article contained serious defamatory allegations that portrayed the complainant as an associate of militants and had severely damaged his reputation. He argued the report was published without verifying facts or obtaining confirmation from investigating agencies, and that invoking press freedom did not absolve the publishers of liability.
The High Court emphasized that labeling someone an overground worker for terrorists or alleging links with militants inherently harms that person’s reputation. Such statements, the court found, diminish a person’s standing in the eyes of others and fulfill the elements of the criminal offense of defamation.
While recognizing that newspapers enjoy the fundamental right to free speech, the Court pointed out this right is subject to reasonable restrictions, including laws against defamation.
The Court reiterated,
“A newspaper or a media house is free to obtain information from all kinds of sources and to propagate the same amongst the readers/viewers which is a fundamental right. However, the said right is subject to the reasonable restrictions, inter-alia, on the ground of defamation as contemplated in Clause (2) of Article 19 of the Constitution. Thus, while a newspaper has right to dissemination of information obtained from antagonistic sources but it cannot disseminate false imputations against a person as the same is restricted in terms of Clause (2) of the Article 19 of the Constitution,”
The bench also observed the article did not state it was based on an official briefing by investigating agencies, nor was there evidence that the information was already public; those issues, the court said, must be resolved at trial.
Referring to the Press and Registration of Books Act, 1867, the Court noted that an editor is statutorily presumed responsible for the selection of material published in a paper, creating a presumption against an editor for defamatory content.
No similar presumption attaches to the owner, and criminal proceedings against an owner can proceed only if the complaint includes specific allegations showing his involvement in publishing the offending item. Finding no such allegation against the owner, the Court quashed the proceedings against him.
The petition was therefore partly allowed, and the High Court directed the trial court to continue the case against the editor.
Advocate Atul Raina represented Dainik Jagran’s owner and editor; Advocate Meenakshi S Salathia represented the complainant, Prem Kumar.
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