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defamation

22 February 2018

Took long enough after publication of the original Caravan article, and yet again proves that strategic litigation against public participation (SLAPP) can be quite effective at stifling or at least significantly delaying dissent...

Live Law

28 August 2017

NUJS Kolkata 2015 alumni Jay Sayta, who reports on India’s gambling laws on his website glaws.in, and The Wire, are facing E-Cool Gaming Solutions' criminal defamation case in far-flung Mizoram for Sayta's story reporting on a Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) audit of the complainant, reported Medianama.

22 August 2017

A Delhi district court today heard the appeal of publishing house Juggernaut against an order restraining it from publishing the book “Godman to Tycoon: The Untold Story of Baba Ramdev”.

15 May 2017

Advocate Kartik Seth warned the Hindustan Times (HT) of criminal defamation charges that he would press against the newspaper for reporting that a battery of expensive senior advocates had been briefed in the case of Seth’s client, who is a government employee.

24 August 2016

The Supreme Court today said that criticism of public policy could not be a ground for slapping defamation suit as it issued fresh notice to Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa on a plea alleging abuse of power by her.

29 July 2016

We explain what’s going on in the Supreme Court between Rahul Gandhi, the RSS and lots of heavyweight lawyers right now. And wasn’t RaGa already told he should apologise or something?

28 July 2016

The Supreme Court said today defamation laws cannot be used by the government to stifle criticism.

27 July 2016

The Supreme Court on Wednesday faulted the magistrate for seeking a police report on a complaint of criminal defamation against Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi, who had blamed the RSS for the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi.

13 July 2016

The Delhi high court today asked Chief Arvind Kejriwal to explain the meaning of the word “thulla”, which he used during a television debate on policemen.

02 June 2016

The Bar Council of India’s (BCI) chairman Manan Kumar Mishra has responded to our request for comment on the news that the BCI had again amended bylaws to prescribe law schools to buy the All India Reporter’s (AIR) products, despite protests from vice chancellors and having agreed two years ago that such a requirement to buy from a single vendor was unfair.

20 May 2016

A Delhi court today dismissed a defamation case filed by a policeman against Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal for using a derogatory term against the men in khaki.

20 May 2016

Screenshot 2016-05-20 11.36.19The Times of India’s (TOI) report on an anonymous “tormented” litigant’s complaint to the Chief Justice of India (CJI), about Delhi high court justice Gita Mittal’s “tardy disposal” of cases, has earned flak from 34 Delhi senior advocates who have written a letter to the newspaper demanding an “unconditional apology”.

12 May 2016

The Supreme Court is likely to pronounce on Friday its verdict on a batch of petitions including by Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and BJP leader Subramanian Swamy challenging the constitutional validity of sections 499 and 500 of the Indian Penal Code providing for criminal defamation.

07 May 2016

A Delhi court on Saturday issued summons to Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal for allegedly using the word "thulla" - derogatory Delhi slang for cop - to describe policemen.

14 April 2016

Item 9 before the bench of Supreme Court Justices JS Khehar and C Nagappan turned out to be an interesting hearing yesterday (13 April) when counsel for Tata Motors, Sidharth Luthra, persisted that there was a case of defamation against the Sunday Indian magazine, edited by the appellant IIPM-Supremo Arindam Chaudhuri, who has been no stranger to strategic litigation against public participation (SLAPP) against publishers.

07 April 2016

A court today granted bail to Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and five others in a criminal defamation case filed by Finance Minister Arun Jaitley.

A lower court announced the bail to Kejriwal and Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leaders Kumar Vishwas, Ashutosh, Sanjay Singh, Raghav Chadha and Deepak Bajpayee.

Kejriwal and the others were summoned in March to appear before the court on 7 April.

Jaitley accused Kejriwal and other AAP leaders of giving “false and defamatory” statements against him in a case related to the Delhi and District Cricket Association (DDCA), thereby harming his reputation.

The AAP leaders had alleged corruption in the DDCA, which Jaitley headed for 13 years until 2013. Jaitley has denied the allegations.

29 February 2016

The Delhi high court took serious exception to its two-judge bench being called a “Dedh Bench (one-and-a-half bench) by advocate Deepak Khosla and ruled, last week, that he was in criminal contempt of the court.

31 December 2015

Senior counsel and Rajya Sabha parliamentarian Ram Jethmalani in an interview in Scroll talks about why he’s representing Arvind Kejriwal pro bono against Arun Jaitley’s defamation actions ("Kejriwal got in touch with me and I promptly said to him, ‘Yes, I will surely represent you.’"):

Is it unusual for a person to file both civil and criminal defamation cases?

Yes, first of all, I believe his [Jaitley’s] game is that he will try to get an injunction against the repetition of the statements of which he is complaining. For this, he will use the civil suit. He, anyway, has no intention of going ahead with that suit. (Laughs)

I know the tricks of the trade. Jaitley thinks through the criminal case he will strike fear in his opponents. I hope, by now, he has been disillusioned on this count. (Laughs) As it is, in a defamation case, the complainant turns into an accused...

I, personally, think Jaitley has taken a very ill-advised step... He shouldn’t have gone to the court. These are matters you must fight in the court of the people.

I never, never, never advise people to go to court, particularly so when there exist some questionable aspects of their public life. Even Kejriwal might not know about it, but which his lawyer perhaps would know better. (Laughs) That is why it was so ill-advised of Jaitley to have taken the step of going to court. He should have handled it politically. Ultimately, the people of India have to judge you...

Meanwhile, his initial love affair with the current BJP government is well and truly over:

[The government’s inaction in seeking the names of black money holders from Germany] is why from being the greatest supporter of Modi I have now turned into his greatest critic...

I said that this was because I am an educated person who has 75 years of experience as a criminal lawyer, and how it was that Modi made a fool of me. I said that even though I had been expelled from the BJP, I worked for him during the 2014 election campaign.