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New Delhi: In a significant observation, the Supreme Court said on Monday that the time has come to decriminalise defamation.
Justice M M Sundresh made the suggestion on Monday while hearing a plea challenging a summons issued by a magistrate, which was subsequently upheld by Delhi High Court, to the online publication The Wire in a criminal defamation case filed by a Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) professor, Bar and Bench reported.
The defamation case was filed against The Wire and its reporter based on a news article in 2016 alleging the professor’s involvement in compiling a 200-page controversial dossier titled ‘Jawaharlal Nehru University: The Den of Secessionism and Terrorism’, which called JNU a ‘den of organised sex racket.’
“I think time has come to decriminalise all this,” Justice Sundresh remarked.
It marks a shift from a judgment that Supreme Court had given in 2016 upholding the constitutional validity of criminal defamation laws, ruling that the right to reputation falls under the fundamental right to life and dignity under Article 21 of the Constitution.
Defamation is currently a criminal offence in India, under Section 356 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, a provision that replaced Section 499 of the erstwhile Indian Penal Code.
