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Notice (8): Undefined variable: urlPrefix [APP/Template/Layout/printlayout.ctp, line 8]latest-news-updates/defamation-and-its-real-dangers-11609.html"/> LATEST NEWS UPDATES | Defamation and Its Real Dangers | Im4change.org
Resource centre on India's rural distress
 
 

Defamation and Its Real Dangers
-The Economic and Political Weekly
 
Media freedom is not restricted by one law but by collusion between economic and political power and big media.

The defamation case filed in a Pune court by former Press Council chairman justice P B Sawant has drawn attention to the criminal law of defamation and whether it restricts the freedom of the press. Justice Sawant was awarded Rs 100 crore in exemplary damages in the case he filed against Times Now TV channel. On 10 September 2008, the television channel had flashed a photograph of justice Sawant in a news item relating to the Ghaziabad provident fund scam, instead of Calcutta High Court’s justice P K Samanta who was implicated in the case. When the retired judge sent the channel a legal notice on 15 September, it realised its mistake. Several days later, on 23 September, it issued an apology scroll, which ran five times. Not satisfied with this response, justice Sawant went ahead and filed the case. To make matters worse for Times Now, its appeal in the Bombay High Court was admitted on condition that it deposit Rs 100 crore – Rs 20 crore in cash and the rest as bank guarantee – with the court and its further appeal against this precondition was turned down by the Supreme Court.

Whether Times Now’s action was defamatory or not will now be decided in the Bombay High Court. But of significance to the media are the conclusions drawn from the Pune court’s order. Media bodies like the Editors Guild of India and the Indian Newspaper Society have called the amount awarded in damages excessive and interpreted this as a serious intrusion into the freedom of the press. While the voices of those sympathetic to Times Now have found ample space in the media – after all, a powerful media house is involved – the real issues in this particular case and on the question of media freedom in general have been somewhat obscured. For instance, the dominant narrative heard in the media suggests that justice Sawant sued Times Now even after it had apologised. The fact is that justice Sawant sent a notice to Times Now well before it finally apologised. Second, the orders of the Bombay High Court and the Supreme Court are being interpreted as vindictive when lawyers have repeatedly stressed that the requirement of 20% of the amount awarded in damages being deposited before an appeal is admitted is an established norm.

And, finally, whether such a large amount in damages will make news organisations overtly cautious and thereby restrict their freedom is an issue where the discussion has not moved beyond the apparent unfairness of the size of the award. Yet the Sawant case speaks to the carelessness of the media when it comes to protecting the reputation of people about whom they report. Even if one argues that his response to what Times Now claims was an inadvertent mistake is exaggerated, the fact remains that justice Sawant was in a position to fight back unlike thousands of ordinary people who would also like to challenge media organisations but are unable to do so.

Another equally significant aspect of the debate that has found no place is the power of corporate media houses to use the same law to suppress criticism or information about their corporate sponsors. For example, the media house to which the Times Now channel belongs, has used Section 66A in the IT Act on defamation through the internet and electronic media on at least two occasions to do precisely this. In 2005, Mediaah, an independent media blog run by a journalist, was forced to close when the Times group sent it a legal notice demanding withdrawal of several critical items from the blog. Unable to fight a legal battle, the journalist thought it better to shut shop. Last month, independent media website The Hoot received a notice from the Times group after an article commented critically on Times Now’s coverage of the attack on Supreme Court lawyer Prashant Bhushan. The article had to be taken off the site and the editor had to issue an apology and clarification. Once again, the decision to bend was because the website was not in a position to fight a protracted legal battle.

Not just powerful media houses, but corporates too have used the defamation provision to ensure that critical voices are not heard. In 2009, Fomento Industries in Goa filed a Rs 500 crore suit against anti-mining activist Seby Rodrigues in the Calcutta High Court for what he wrote on his blog. Rodrigues has been forced to spend his meagre resources to travel between Goa and Kolkata to fight the case. Such a tactic, termed SLAPP (Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation), is used repeatedly by c­orporates against activists.

There should be a debate on the defamation law. But the debate needs to address the way it is used by the powerful to suppress dissent and information. It needs to look at the way investigative articles exposing, for instance, environmental violations by business houses, are withdrawn because editors choose to be cautious rather than get entangled in legal battles. It needs to ask why there is a sameness in media content and an absence of strongly critical voices that are essential in a free press within a democracy. It needs to interrogate the convergence of interests between big business and big media and the State. Freedom of the press is not threatened just by one law. It is in danger when there is collusion ­between those with economic and political power and the media.