An Infirm, Erroneous and Unsustainable Judgement

Spokespersons: Shri Jairam Ramesh and Dr. Abhishek Manu Singhvi: Dr. Abhishek Manu Singhvi said that friends, we have a 170 pages judgement, which is still subject to translation. It is in Gujarati. We believe that this is full of errors and legally unsustainable conclusions. All your attempts to create a chilling effect, a throttling effect, a strangulating effect on open fearless speech relating to public interest, will not stop either Shri Rahul Gandhi or the Congress Party.

This particular speech was made in the context of price rise and unemployment as the speech transcript shows. It was made in Kolar, more than 3-4 years ago and there are some disturbing aspects of this judgement, which, of course shall be subject to challenge, proximately and immediately but which I want to share with you, very briefly.

Firstly, the heart of the law of criminal defamation is that persons who are complainants should be those who must be able to demonstrate, how they personally A, B or C is defamed. How is he or she prejudiced. Now, the admitted position is that no one which is the subject matter of the statement, which is found to be offending has filed a criminal complaint. The first condition, precedent of the law of defamation appears to have been patently not fulfilled and yet led to a conviction.

Secondly, it is equally well established that malice is an essential ingredient of such offences. The very context of this speech shows that I could not have a malicious intent. A leader of the political party of India with a pan-India footprint was speaking about unemployment, price rise, in the course of which there is a sentence, which has been found to be offending, less than a sentence.

The focus of the speech was not these three persons. The intent of the speech was not these three persons. The thrust of the substance of the core of its speech was not these three persons and less than half a sentence on a speech about public interest, political issues in the country, major economic issues like unemployment and price rise, social issues, there cannot be any possible malicious intent which is again another vital condition precedent to make out the criminal defamation and that is patently missing.

Thirdly, it appears and I think, we are right more or less but again we will check up and revert to you that after this complaint was filed, and the magistrate who was at that time one Mr. X, took up the matter. A large chunk of the time of the last 2-3 years was taken up by the complainant himself in going to a higher court and getting a stay of the entire proceedings, which is rather unusual for a complainant who should be interested in expedition.

The same complainant after a long period of time, where he himself stayed in his own complaint, suddenly withdrew the complaint.

Fourthly, as we all know this was an event in the course of a political speech, completely dealing with various public interest issues in the state of Karnataka at Kolar. Without meaning to be tactical, there is an established provision, which has been expounded and elaborated by several Supreme Court judgements, called section 202, precisely created to prevent without jurisdiction, mischievous prosecution complaints in areas, where no cause of action has arisen. Clearly, Kolar speech has no connection with Surat.

Now, the object of 202 is that the Magistrate before issuing process, namely before initiating process must first examine, whether reasonably it can be said that his jurisdiction has been rightly invoked and he can simply reject complaint, saying- please go. He is not rejecting the complaint on merit.

Another issue is, 5th issue of facet is that very short arguments appeared to have been heard on the issue of sentence and somewhat near the maximum sentence appears to have been imposed after very short arguments, as you know sentencing is a different, separate, distinct procedure, which requires proper hearing and arguments, apart from and irrespective of conviction.

No doubt there is a conviction but this is an infirm, erroneous and unsustainable judgement. It will be challenged and we are hopeful that it will be stayed and ultimately quashed. Thursday, March 23, 2023.