Supreme Court quashes criminal defamation case against India Today chairperson Aroon Purie

The Supreme Court on Monday quashed the criminal defamation case against chairperson of India Today Group, Aroon Purie in relation to a news item titled 'Mission Misconduct', which was published by India Today magazine in its edition dated April 30, 2007. (Aroon Purie vs State of NCT of Delhi and ors).A bench comprising Chief Justice of India (CJI) UU Lalit and Justice Bela M Trivedi allowed the appeal filed by Purie against a judgment of the Delhi High Court, which had refused to quash the case..The Court, however, did not quash the case against the author of the concerned story."We have accepted the appeal preferred by Poorie and dismissed the appeal by journalist," the Court said.The Bench in its ruling dealt with the limited question of whether 'the benefit of any of the exceptions to Section 499 (defamation) of the Indian Penal Code can be availed of and on the strength of such exceptions, the proceedings can be quashed at the stage when an application moved under Section 482 of the Code is considered?'.The top court ruled in the affirmative, relying on precedent to make it clear that such benefits do not have to be rigidly applied only during the trial stage. " ... if we consider the assertions and allegations made in the complaint, we find that nothing specific has been attributed to A-1, Editor-in-Chief. He cannot, therefore, be held liable for the acts committed by the author of the Article, namely, A-2. The allegations made in the complaint completely fall short of making out any case against A-1. 24. With regard to the role ascribed to A-2, it must be stated at this stage that as an author of the Article his case stands on a different footing.".Before the Supreme Court, Senior Advocate KV Vishwanathan appearing for Purie, had argued that he was the editor-in-chief at the time of publication and could not be held liable considering the decision in the case of KM Mathew v State Of Kerala. CJI Lalit was of the view that the government officials and editor may be granted relief. "We will grant relief to the government servant and the editor but not the correspondent," he had remarked. .Before the High Court, Purie had contended that at the time of the publication of the news item, the allegation of sexual harassment and financial irregularity had already been made against the complainant, and steps for disciplinary proceedings had been initiated. The news item, therefore, only reported a fact that was on public record, it was stated..After the complaint was lodged, the trial court had also passed an order summoning Purie. This order, he had argued, was liable to be quashed on the ground of violation of Section 202 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC) [mandatory enquiry into where the accused was residing], as well as sections 196(2) [previous sanction of the Central government or of the State government or of the District Magistrate for certain offences] and Section 197 [prosecution of judges and public servants] CrPC..The respondent, on the other hand, maintained that India Today went ahead with the publication of an unsubstantiated and unverified defamatory story which was splashed all over the world through the medium of internet, without any basis..The Bench of Justice Yogesh Khanna dismissed Purie's plea in April this year, noting in the order,"...the assertions the news item merely reported facts which were accurate and reflected public records and cannot be held to be defamatory, cannot be accepted. Rather such assertion and who was responsible for its publication and has it came to the fore of editors require critical examination and hence evidence of these issues is required.".Senior Advocate KV Viswanathan appeared for Purie. Additional Solicitor General Aishwarya Bhati appeared for the public servants named, and advocate Hrishikesh Baruah appeared for the India Today group.Advocate R Sathish appeared for the original complainant. [Read judgment]