defamation

A Supreme Court bench of justices Gopala Gowda and Amitava Roy declined a transfer petition from Ahmedabad city civil court to Delhi in the Rs 250 crore defamation case launched by Essar against Caravan magazine and others, as first reported by Legally India in August.

Mint reported:

Lawyer Prashant Bhushan, representing the magazine, argued on Tuesday that none of the actions leading to the alleged defamation had occurred in Ahmedabad, and the appropriate and convenient forum was Delhi. He called Essar’s petition a Strategic Litigation Against Public Participation (SLAPP) suit aimed at harassing the magazine. He said that it was in the interest of justice to transfer the case to Delhi, so that Caravan could produce its witnesses and defend its case.

Essar Steel India has filed a Rs 250 crore defamation suit in the Ahmedabad city civil court against Delhi-headquartered magazine Caravan, its publisher Delhi Press, several of its editors and staff reporter Krishn Kaushik.

A Supreme Court bench headed by Justice Madan Lokur has transferred to the Delhi high court the four-year old Rs 50 crore defamation suit by the Delhi-based Indian Institute of Planning and Management (IIPM) that was filed in Silchar, Assam, which had in 2011 passed an injunction against the Delhi-based publisher of The Caravan magazine for a hard-hitting profile of its founder Arindam Chaudhuri.

After Subramanian Swamy and PP Rao began arguing yesterday in the multi-petitioner challenge of sections 499 and 500 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), Swamy, senior counsel Rao and Rajeev Dhavan today continued their arguments.

The hearings in the Subramaniam Swamy v Union of India case began today, with Swamy, alongside several other petitioners, seeking to get the Supreme Court to strike down section 499 and 500 of the Indian Penal Code. This is what happened.

Defamation will no longer be a jailable offence under which journalists may be charged for their reportage, if the Foundation of Media Professionals’ (FMP) constitutional challenge to India’s criminal defamation provisions wins in the Supreme Court.

Legally India has responded to the legal notice sent by Bar Council of India (BCI) chairman Manan Kumar Mishra on 25 May 2015 to Legally India, Kian Ganz and Prachi Shrivastava.

Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia, accused in a defamation case filed by senior congress leader Kapil Sibal’s son Amit, appeared before a court here on Saturday.

Kejriwal appeared before Metropolitan Magistrate Sunil Kumar Sharma after Amit Sibal’s counsel opposed his application seeking exemption from personal appearance as Kejriwal had to attend the convocation function of St. Stephen’s College.

Sibal’s counsel Mohit Mathur opposed Kejriwal’s plea and said whether a college convocation was more important than attending court proceedings.

Kejriwal’s counsel Rahul Mehra told the court that Kejriwal and Sisodia would appear before it at 12.30 p.m. and after that both marked their presence in the afternoon.

Mathur, however, did not oppose the exemption plea moved by Sisodia.

Advocate Prashant Bhushan and Shazia Ilmi, who has quit the Aam Aadmi Party, accused in the case also appeared before court.

Meanwhile, the court recorded the statement of Amit Sibal.

The case was filed by Amit Sibal after Kejriwal, during a press conference in 2013, alleged conflict of interest over his appearing in the Supreme Court for telecom major Vodafone while his father was the union communication minister.

The Delhi high court has lifted its order restraining publication of reports on the alleged harassment complaint joint winner of the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize, Rajendra K Pachauri.

Advocate Sushil Kumar Mishra has filed a criminal defamation complaint before an Allahabad magistrate against US president Barack Obama, who allegedly “tarnished the image of India which is a secular country”, after POTUS warned in a speech on his India visit that religious tolerance was on the rise, reported the PTI.

Magistrate Neelima Singh set 18 February to hear the matter under section 500 of the IPC for criminal defamation and to decide whether Obama should be summoned.. Complainant alleged Obama had, through his reported statement that religious intolerance was on the rise in the country, “tarnished the image of India which is a secular country”. He prayed that Obama be prosecuted under Section 500 (punishment for defamation) of the IPC

Hat-tip @SauravDatta29.

The case has now been dismissed, reported the PTI, because it was not maintainable and Obama enjoyed diplomatic immunity.

The India Today group has published a small note of mutual regret on the bottom right-hand corner of one of its websites, in its settlement of a Rs 1 crore defamation suit brought in 2012 by Louise Khurshid, the wife of Salman Khurshid, who was then law minister.