Times of
India: Chandigarh: Sunday, September 30, 2018.
The
Punjab and Haryana high court has held that filing of a criminal complaint
against any person before the court on the basis of documents cannot be termed
as defamation. The HC passed these orders while setting aside a nine-year-old
defamation proceedings against a Gurdaspur resident by a local court.
“A
complaint has been made to the chief judicial magistrate (CJM), Gurdaspur, on
the basis of which the summoning order has been passed. The petitioner has
collected the evidence by filing the application under RTI and based on the
information supplied under the RTI, she has filed the complaint. Therefore,
filing of criminal complaint before the court on the basis of the documents is
not defamation and is covered under exception 8 of Section 499 (defamation),
IPC,” the HC held.
Justice
Kuldip Singh of the HC passed these orders while allowing a petition filed by
Jasdeep Kaur of Gurdaspur.
In
this case, the respondent, Manjit Singh, was working as kanungo in the revenue
department. Jasdeep had lodged an FIR against him on March 19, 2007, regarding
house trespass and causing hurt to or obstructing a public servant from
discharging his duties. The case was registered at the Gurdaspur Sadar police station.
Since, Manjit failed to obtain bail, therefore, he remained absent from duty
from March 19-23, 2007. He got leave for the said period on medical grounds by
producing an OPD slip of the Gurdaspur civil hospital.
Jasdeep
after getting information under the RTI Act from the office of DC moved the
application before the Gurdaspur civil surgeon, who stated that the OPD slip
produced by Manjit was not issued by any medical officer. On that, she filed a
criminal complaint before the Gurdaspur chief judicial magistrate (CJM) after
which Manjit was summoned to face one more case of forgery and cheating.
Manjit,
on the other hand, filed a criminal complaint on November 27, 2008, against
Jasdeep for defamation, alleging that she had prepared a false and concocted
complaint to lower his esteem in the eyes of his colleagues and public. Acting
on Majit’s complaint, the CJM Gurdaspur on September 6, 2011 ordered to summon
Jasdeep. Aggrieved from her summoning, the petitioner had approached the HC,
submitting that the case was fully covered under exception 8 of Section 499 of
the IPC, wherein preferring accusation in good faith to an authorized person
was not an offence.
Counsel
for the respondent, however, had argued that the summoning order has been
rightly passed and that the respondent had been defamed by levelling false
accusations. Hearing both parties, the HC ordered to set aside the defamation
case against the petitioner.
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