Jaipur:<\/strong> The Rajasthan High Court has quashed criminal defamation proceedings initiated against M\/s Rajasthan Patrika Pvt. Ltd. and its Editor-in-Chief Gulab Kothari, holding that there was no specific allegation, evidence or attribution establishing their involvement in the alleged defamatory publication.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Justice Ashok Kumar Jain, while allowing petition filed, set aside the April 7, 2004 cognizance order and the November 11, 2005 revisional court order, and quashed the proceedings pending against the petitioners.<\/p>\n\n\n\n For the context the case arose from a complaint filed in 2003 alleging that a campaign, distribution of pamphlets, public announcements and a subsequent news report published in Rajasthan Patrika had harmed the complainant’s reputation. Cognizance had been taken against ten accused under IPC.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Court after considering the material, noted that the complainant’s case did not contain any specific attribution showing the role of Rajasthan Patrika or Gulab Kothari in the alleged conspiracy or in the distribution of pamphlets and public demonstrations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Court also further noted that the evidence recorded under CrPC also failed to establish any meeting of minds between the petitioners and the other accused.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Court made an important observation regarding the liability of a newspaper company in defamation cases.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Further, held that merely because a company owns a newspaper, it cannot automatically be held liable for an allegedly defamatory publication.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Court said that, it would be necessary to establish that the Board of Directors or management had the requisite intention, knowledge or reason to believe that the publication was intended to harm the reputation of another person.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The court found no such record which demonstrates the involvement of the petitioner in the alleged distribution of pamphlets, public announcements or demonstration at Laxmangarh.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The High Court emphasised that issuance of criminal process is a serious matter and cannot be undertaken mechanically without establishing the essential ingredients of the offence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Referring to the Supreme Court’s decisions, the Court reiterated that at the stage of issuing process, the Magistrate must be satisfied that sufficient grounds exist for proceeding against the accused.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Court further noted that where the complaint and supporting material fail to disclose the essential ingredients of an offence, continuation of criminal proceedings would amount to abuse of the process of law.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Court also underlined the constitutional significance of freedom of speech and expression under Article 19(1)(a) of the Constitution.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Referring to Supreme Court precedents, the Court observed that while the right to free speech is subject to reasonable restrictions, the law must also protect journalistic freedom.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Court further observed that the matter directly concerned publication of a news article and therefore required consideration of the fundamental right of freedom of the press.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Justice Jain also held that neither the complaint nor the evidence contained any material demonstrating that the petitioners had acted with the intention, knowledge or reason to believe that the publication would cause harm to the complainant’s reputation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Court further referred to the principles governing defamation under Section 499 IPC, including the protection available to statements made in good faith, fair criticism and publications serving a legitimate public purpose.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Court concluded that the trial court had wrongly connected the petitioners with the pamphlet distribution, demonstration and loudspeaker announcements despite the absence of material establishing their involvement or conspiracy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Holding that the summoning process was an abuse of the process of law, the High Court allowed the petition and quashed the proceedings against Rajasthan Patrika Pvt. Ltd. and Gulab Kothari.<\/p>\n\n\n\n For Petitioner : Mr. V.R. Bajwa, Senior Advocate with Ms. Savita Nathawat, Mr. Mahesh Vijay and Mr. Manish K. Sharma<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Court finds no specific role, conspiracy or evidence against newspaper company or editor in alleged defamatory publication; under Article 19(1)(a) Protects Press freedom Jaipur: The Rajasthan High Court has quashed criminal defamation proceedings initiated against M\/s Rajasthan Patrika Pvt. Ltd. and its Editor-in-Chief Gulab Kothari, holding that there was no specific allegation, evidence or attribution … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":9895,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_wppp_is_locked":false,"_wppp_selected_plans":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[29,69],"tags":[3723,3714,3716,3718,3720,1437,3715,3724,3719,3722,3721,1438,659,43,2180,3717],"class_list":["post-9890","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-top-stories","category-rajasthan-high-court","tag-article-191a","tag-article-nineteen-one-a","tag-criminal-defamation","tag-defamation-case","tag-defamation-proceedings","tag-freedom-of-press","tag-freedom-of-speech-and-expression","tag-gulab-kothari","tag-journalistic-freedom","tag-media-freedom","tag-newspaper-liability","tag-press-freedom","tag-rajasthan-hc","tag-rajasthan-high-court","tag-rajasthan-patrika","tag-rajasthan-patrika-pvt-ltd"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lawsandlegals.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9890","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lawsandlegals.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lawsandlegals.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lawsandlegals.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lawsandlegals.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9890"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lawsandlegals.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9890\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9892,"href":"https:\/\/lawsandlegals.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9890\/revisions\/9892"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lawsandlegals.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9895"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lawsandlegals.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9890"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lawsandlegals.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9890"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lawsandlegals.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9890"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}No liability merely because newspaper owns publication<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
\u2018Criminal process cannot be set in motion as a matter of course\u2019<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
Press freedom under Article 19(1)(a) protected<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
No essential ingredients of defamation established<\/h4>\n\n\n\n