Chandigarh: The Punjab and Haryana High Court quashed a defamation case against journalists of The Tribune and Punjabi Tribune stemming from a 2019 article reporting allegations made by then-Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) MP and now Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann against then-AAP MLA Nazar Singh Manshahia.
On 26 March, Justice Tribhuvan Dahiya ruled that the petitioners—The Tribune‘s former Editor-in-Chief and Principal Correspondent, Rajesh Ramachandran and Parvesh Sharma, respectively, as well as Punjabi Tribune Editor Dr Swaraj Bir Singh and contributor Gurdeep Singh Lali—lacked the requisite intent to defame Manshahia.
The detailed order was released this week.
The case was related to a press conference held by Mann on 27 April 2019, where the then AAP Punjab convener and Sangrur MP alleged that Manshahia got Rs 10 crore from the ruling Congress and was also going to be appointed as chairman of the Punjab Pollution Control Board.
The Tribune and Punjabi Tribune reported Mann’s allegations in an article published on 28 April, 2019.
Manshahia filed a criminal complaint on July 30, 2019, against Mann and eight others, including the petitioners, alleging defamation under Sections 500 and 120-B of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), and Sections 66 and 67 of the Information Technology (IT) Act.
He claimed the statements were false, politically motivated, and published without verification, damaging his reputation. On 14 December, 2020, the Chief Judicial Magistrate (CJM) in Mansa summoned the petitioners to face trial under Sections 500, 501, and 502 IPC, finding the news item prima facie defamatory.
The petitioners then approached the high court under Section 482 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC) to quash the complaint and summoning order.
Justice Dahiya’s 13-page judgment meticulously dissected the legal framework of defamation under IPC Section 499 and the evidence presented, ultimately concluding that the case against the journalists and editors lacked merit.
‘Absence of intent or knowledge to defame’
IPC Section 499 defines defamation as a statement made with an intention to harm or with knowledge or reason to believe it would harm the reputation of a person. The court found no evidence in the complaint or preliminary testimony to suggest the petitioners intended to harm Manshahia’s reputation or knew that the publication of the article would do so.
Justice Dahiya noted, “There is no such allegation in the entire complaint against the petitioners,” adding that no material indicated their complicity beyond reporting Mann’s statements.
The CJM’s assertion that the petitioners acted “despite having knowledge or reason to believe” the imputation would harm Manshahia was deemed baseless and lacking evidentiary support, the high court order said.
‘Fair and accurate reporting’
The petitioners argued that they accurately reported Mann’s press conference statements, attributing them solely to him without distortion or malice.
The court accepted this, emphasising that the news item was a factual recounting of a public figure’s claims, not an independent assertion by the journalists or editors.
Citing the Supreme Court’s ruling in Jeffrey J. Diermeier v. State of West Bengal (2010), the court reiterated that defamation requires mens rea (guilty mind), which was absent here. The inclusion of a comment from Congress denying Mann’s allegations further bolstered the petitioners’ claim of balanced reporting, the court said.
‘1st exception to Section 499 inapplicable’
The petitioners invoked the First Exception to Section 499 IPC, which excludes true imputations made for the public good from being defamatory.
However, the court clarified that this defence requires evidence of both truth and public benefit—issues to be proven at trial.
Since the petitioners did not assert the allegations’ truth (only their accuracy in reporting Mann’s words), and no evidence of public good was presented at this stage, the exception did not directly apply. Nonetheless, this did not weaken their case, as the court focused on the lack of defamatory intent rather than the exception’s applicability.
‘Judicial precedent & abuse of process’
Drawing on State of Haryana v. Bhajan Lal (1992), the court held that criminal proceedings can be quashed if the allegations and evidence do not disclose an offense. “Here, the uncontroverted facts—accurate reporting without intent to harm—did not meet the threshold for defamation,” the court said.
The court also referenced its own 2024 ruling in N. Ram v. RSS, where a similar defamation case against a newspaper editor was quashed for lack of intent, reinforcing that fair reporting does not constitute an offense. Justice Dahiya concluded that summoning the petitioners would be “an abuse of the process of court, and a travesty of justice”.
(Edited by Sanya Mathur)
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