Tag: Law of Defamation in India

Criminal contempt has been recognized as the action of publishing any matter including by words, spoken or written, or by signs, or by visible representations, or otherwise, or any other act which (i) scandalises or tends to or lowers or tends to, the authority of any court; (ii) prejudices or interferes with due course of judicial proceedings; or (iii) interferes or obstructs the administration of justice in any other manner1. Criminal contempt is considered to create distrust in the popular mind and impair the confidence of the people in the courts, hence, the law has been put in place to protect the legitimacy and authority of the court. ......

As a general rule, it is frowned upon to bring disrepute to a person. That general principle is integral enough for the law to be concerned with it. The Indian Penal Code (“Code“) defines defamation as “making or publishing an imputation concerning any person, intending to harm, or knowing or having reason that such imputation will harm, the reputation of such person....

In what has been termed a “defamation blitz”, an Indian corporate house has filed at least 28 defamation suits in courts since January 2018, targetting media and publishing houses, journalists, authors and politicians. Four companies under the Reliance Group have filed these suits objecting to content and reportage published about the company’s commercial activities. This is part of a larger trend in India around defamation suits which raises many questions for publishing houses and authors. ...

Defamation in India is both a civil and a criminal offense. Conceived by Lord Macaulay in 1837 in the first draft of the Indian Penal Code and subsequently codified in 1860, Defamation Laws were along the same lines of the prevailing English law. The UK itself has since decriminalized Criminal Defamation where as Indian Law is unchanged in its stance on the subject. This article looks into the history, the current position of Defamation Law in the country and also at the voices raised against it....