Dear Editor,
Quite often defamation cases are at the centre of controversy. Talk of scrapping Section 499 of Indian Penal Code has often surfaced. Under section 499 of IPC, defamation has been defined as “an offence when someone makes, publishes an incorrect statement, accusation, or false imputation about another person, whether through words, oral communication, visual cues or any other means”. Politicians are generally loose canons and motor mouthed, with few exceptional cases. Senior Congress leader Rahul Gandhi has been implicated in a defamation case for allegedly linking RSS with Gauri Lankesh murder. In February 2019, Maharashtra-based RSS worker and lawyer Dhrutiman Joshi had filed a defamation case against Gandhi and CPI (M) general secretary Sitaram Yechury for allegedly linking the Sangh to the killing of Gauri Lankesh. If the law takes its proper course, if the allegation against Gandhi is true and if the allegation that the killer is found to be not an RSS member, Gandhi is guilty of the offence committed under Section 499 of IPC with regard to defamation. When defamation case is filed, the accused persons do not have the option but to deny the statement attributed to them because they cannot argue that the statement made does not fall under the definition of ‘defamation’. If the allegation is found to be true, the next option for the accused is to deny that it was his voice to escape the punishment. In any case, the ‘contribution’ of politicians in keeping the courts busy is massive. Both Gandhi and Yechury had pleaded “not guilty” because of which the judge granted bail in July 2019. A Mumbai court rejected the applications of both Gandhi and Yechury to dismiss the defamation complaint in November 2019. Trinamul MP Mahua Moitra has sued BJP MP Nishikant Dubey for alleging that she received bribe from Darshan Hiranandani for “Cash for Query”. Mahua Moitra has accused and claimed that Dubey and advocate Jai Anant Dehadrai have attacked to damage her reputation and goodwill to “extract personal and political vendetta”. Moitra has slapped a legal notice against Dubey over “defamatory” allegations that she took “bribes” to ask questions in the Lok Sabha. Dubey has relied upon Dehadrai’s letter to claim that the latter had “irrefutable” evidence to show that bribes were exchanged between Moitra and businessman Hiranandani drawing parallels to the 2005 “Cash for Query” scandal. Like any other bribe giver who has willingly given bribe to get the work done, Hiranandani has refuted the allegation. The velocity of truth in the cases of Gandhi, Yechury and Motra can be found only in courts. The point not to be missed is Moitra is not a non-controversial person. She had made controversial remarks during a conclave arranged by a media house in Kolkata. However, TMC distanced itself from the remarks of Moitra. She had dubbed Godess Kali as “meat-eating and alchohol-accepting” Godess. In this connection, four cases have been filed against Moitra for her objectionable remarks under Section 295A of IPC. It is neither desirable nor advisable to rescind Section 499 of IPC. Persons responsible for tarnishing the image of others for no fault of their own must be punished. Cooked-up charges of petitioners must be dismissed and the respondents must be exonerated of the charges. Cases have to be disposed of at the earliest to check the unabated politicians.
K.V. Seetharamaiah
