Delhi High Court rejects 17-year-old defamation case against Hindustan Times

The Delhi High Court recently rejected two defamation suits filed by Indian Foreign Service (IFS) officer Mahaveer Singhvi against the Hindustan Times newspaper, its Hindi daily Hindustan, former editors Vir Sanghvi and Mrinal Pandey and two reporters [Mahaveer Singhvi v Hindustan Times Limited & Ors]..Justice Neena Bansal Krishna rejected the 17-year-old defamation suits after noting that the three articles published by Hindustan Times and Hindustan newspapers were not per se defamatory.“Balancing the right of information of the public with the duty of the Media of truthful reporting and the individual right of protection of his reputation, it is held that the Articles which are the subject matter of the two suits, are not per se defamatory,” the Court held..Singhvi, a 1999 batch IFS officer, had sued the newspapers, as well as editors Sanghvi, Pandey, and reporters Saurabh Shukla and Rakesh Kumar Singh.The articles were published in the year 2002 alleging that Singhvi had been sacked after tapes proved misconduct on his part and that he had harassed a woman after she rejected his marriage proposal. The decision to terminate his services was eventually overturned by the High Court in 2008. The High Court's ruling was later confirmed by the Supreme Court in 2010. Meanwhile, he filed the present defamation case against Hindustan Times in 2007. It was Singhvi’s case that the news reports from 2002 were in gross violation of the norms of journalistic conduct and that there was not even an iota of truth in the facts mentioned in them.He said that though these articles refer to an obnoxious conversation where he used expletives against the woman, such a conversation never occurred..After considering the case, the High Court said that the newspaper articles have, in a neutral or truthful manner, simply reported the news based on the information collected from the verified sources.“From the entire Article, it cannot be inferred that there were any malicious false allegations or conduct attributed to the plaintiff. Rather, the truth of initiation of an enquiry and during its pendency, discharge of the plaintiff while on Probation, is not in dispute. That a Tape containing obnoxious conversation of a woman, is also not disputed. No other facts have been mentioned in the Newspaper Article. It is evident that the reporting was a fair comment, based on their sources and was not defamatory,” the Court held.The Court added that Singhvi may have a genuine grievance against the woman whose conversations were allegedly contained in the tapes, but noted that he is already pursuing an independent remedy against her.The High Court also observed that a person's reputation is not so fragile that it becomes undone by an unsavoury incident from years earlier, at the beginning of one's career. "Reputation is what one builds over a period of time by his conduct and work. The entire incident may have left the plaintiff completely shattered and distraught, but it is his conviction in his truthfulness that gave him the courage to stand for his rights and approach the Central Administrative Tribunal to win back his honour by reinstatement in his job," the Court added. It, therefore, rejected the defamation plea..Advocates Aadil Singh Boparai, Sumer Singh Boparai and Sadiq Noor appeared for the plaintiff, Mahaveer Singhvi.Advocates M Dutta and Aditya Guha appeared for the defendants (HT, its editors and reporters)..[Read Judgment]