Public apology trumps monetary compensation, Delhi HC in defamation case against Outlook, Pravin Anand

The Delhi High Court yesterday finally put to bed a defamation suit that lasted nearly twenty years. Quite significantly, Justice Rajiv Sahai Endlaw opined that a public apology is a more appropriate relief than monetary damages in defamation cases..The matters dates back to 1998, when the plaintiffs Tosiba Appliances filed a defamation suit against Japanese company Toshiba, Outlook Magazine along with its President and its Editor, and Managing Partner of Anand & Anand, Pravin Anand..In 1997, Outlook had carried an article on the business of counterfeiting well-known brands. In that article, Anand was pictured standing alongside a few products, one of which was labelled ‘Tosiba’. The photo was captioned ‘Lawyer Parvin Anand displays seized fakes’..The background to this was that Tosiba and Toshiba were involved in trademark disputes before various fora, and that Anand was representing Toshiba in one of the cases..Anand claimed that the caption was supplied by the author of the article and that he did not in any way state that the plaintiff’s products were fake. Toshiba, on its part, claimed that the suit was filed by the plaintiff company in order to gain some kind of leverage in the infringement proceedings pending against it..In 1998, Outlook agreed to publish a corrigendum in their magazine stating that the plaintiff’s products were inadvertently shown as part of a collection of counterfeits. However, the plaintiff company was not satisfied, claiming that the corrigendum was not published in a conspicuous manner..On reading the entire article, the High Court decided that the plaintiff company did not have any cause of action against Outlook as,.“…article is general in nature, relating to the subject of counterfeiting of well-known brands, and is not relatable to the plaintiff.”.The Court held the same with respect to Anand, stating,.“For a plaintiff in a suit for compensation for defamation, it is essential to disclose that each of the defendants from whom compensation is claimed has defamed the plaintiff. All that is pleaded is that the defendant No.5, who is alleged to have defamed the plaintiff, is the advocate for the defendant No.1 with whom the plaintiff is in litigation….…However, a lawyer is not an agent of his client for the client to be liable for all the actions of his lawyer.”.Justice Endlaw also went on to uphold the freedom of press..“Journalists have a fundamental right to carry on their occupation under Article 19(1)(g) of the Constitution of India; b) that the right to freedom of speech and expression guaranteed by Article 19(1)(a) of the Constitution includes their right to publish as Journalists a faithful report of the proceedings which they have witnessed and heard in Court; c) freedom of speech and expression guaranteed by Article 19(1)(a) of the Constitution includes the freedom of press…”.In the last few paragraphs of the judgment, he made an important observation on the relief in defamation cases..“I may also record that in my opinion, the harm done by defamation being to the reputation of a person, a direction to issue a public apology or a direction to correct the errors, if any…appears to be a more appropriate relief than a relief of monetary damages. Compensation in monetary damages can never set the record straight or restore the damaged reputation caused by a libelous news report..The person aggrieved by a libelous news report having a large circulation can never exactly know who all have had access thereto and cannot possibly go to each and everyone of those persons with the judgment of award of compensation to him. Reputation of an individual is not something which can be measured or equated in money. It is only a written apology contained in the same media which may reach the same people who may have had access to the libelous material earlier published and that alone can restore the reputation…”.Moreover, he held that if exorbitant damages are extracted form media houses, it might result in a chilling effect on the press..“Not only so, award of damages, particularly in large amounts, against media houses may also have a chilling effect on the media. In some cases, payment of such amount of compensation, if unable to afford, may compel the media to shut down or may make the media over conscious and thereby fail in its duty to report news on contemporaneous subjects of public interest.”.Noting that the plaintiff was not satisfied by the earlier corrigendum issued by Outlook, Justice Endlaw directed the publication to issue another one in ‘Wide Latin’ font, sized 16 on the index page of its next issue. This, despite warning the plaintiff that the new corrigendum may do them more harm than good..“I had in fact during the hearing cautioned the counsel for the plaintiff that publication now by the defendants No. 2 to 4 of a apology or a clarification may bring adverse publicity to the plaintiff and do harm which the impugned article is not found to have done . The counsel for the plaintiff however did not agree.”.Advocates Preet Pal Singh and Priyam Mehta appeared for the plaintiffs. Senior Advocate Anup Bhambhani represented Outlook and its parent company and Editor, while Senior Advocate Sudhir Chandra appeared for Anand..Read the judgment: