HC bins defamation suit against Tribune scribes

Just over four years after The Tribune’s then Editors Rajesh Ramachandran and Dr Swaraj Bir Singh, along with two reporters, were summoned in a defamation case by a Mansa court, the Punjab and Haryana High Court today quashed the criminal complaint filed in the matter with regard to them. Justice Tribhuvan Dahiya has also quashed all consequential proceedings, including the summoning order, dated December 14, 2020, against them.

A complaint alleging defamation was filed by former MLA Nazar Singh Manshahia against AAP leader and now Punjab CM Bhagwant Mann. Justice Dahiya ruled that the complaint lacked any material to show that the journalists had reported Mann’s allegations with intent to harm the complainant’s reputation.

“As allegations in the complaint even if accepted in entirety do not constitute the offences under Sections 499 to 502 of the IPC (dealing with defamation), summoning the petitioners to face trial will be an abuse of the process of court, and a travesty of justice,” the Bench ruled. The court held that there was no occasion to summon them to face trial in the absence of any material indicating the petitioners’ complicity in the case. “The order is, accordingly, groundless and unsustainable,” the Bench asserted.