On Monday, the Supreme Court, led by Justices M.M. Sundesh and S.C. Sharma, passed a historic remark: It is high time that defamation is decriminalised. The remark was made as the Supreme Court put on hold the trial against the news portal The Wire regarding a 2016 defamation case filed by former Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) professor Amita Singh against the news portal, which had allegedly filed a dossier that revealed a sex racket on campus.
The stay of the bench occurred after a notice was sent to the Foundation, Independent Journalism, a non-profit organization that operates The Wire, in reaction to a petition submitted by the Foundation. The petition was aimed at the court, labeling the current defamation case as any pending case, especially that case where Congress leader Rahul Gandhi was summoned on allegations of having made some comments against V.D. Savarkar. The petitioner Kapil Sibal, a senior advocate, pointed to the similarity of his case, as a defamation one, with that of prominent political leaders, by pointing to the general consequences of the case on press freedom and political responsibility.
AmitaSingh, a former chairperson of the Centre of the Study of Law and Governance at JNU, brought the suit, claiming that one of the news stories published in the publication, The Wire, had wrongfully implicated her in drafting a dossier about a university sex-racketeering scheme. She alleged that the article had been viral on social media, harming her image as well as exposing her to a hate campaign. In July 2023, the Delhi High Court had quashed the trial court summons, but in March of the same year, it had stayed that High Court order, and Singh appealed the decision on the basis that the High Court had not even reviewed the contents of the alleged report when it had quashed the summons.
In July 2024, in its decision, the Supreme Court affirmed that the High Court had made an error by going to the merits of the case, and remanded the magistrate court to revisit the issue of issuing a new summons. This is seen in the ruling of the Court that is increasingly appreciating that criminalizing defamation places an undue burden on investigative journalism and stifles the freedom of expression. The stay of the trial has now made available to the apex court a more subtle and civil-law approach to libel, balancing reputational rights with the societal interest in free speech.
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