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An assault beaten back

The tale of a government order issued last Thursday — and withdrawn the very next day when it threatened to spark a national uproar — shows the extraordinary lengths to which the Rajasekhara Reddy government in Andhra Pradesh would go to stifle a vigilant media. The order had empowered the Special Commissioner, Information and Public Relations, to file criminal defamation cases on behalf of other departments through a special public prosecutor. This blanket permission and the centralised system were evidently a prelude to launching criminal defamation cases on a massive scale. The provocation was apparently a series of reports in Eenadu and other newspapers and the electronic media on large-scale purchases of land by ministers, top politicians and their families. The order sought to obviate the delays and the slow response from the secretaries of the various departments in initiating prosecution for news items that are "false, baseless and defamatory in nature to the government." It is to the credit of the media and democratic voices both within the State and outside that the assault on democratic values was beaten back, with the Chief Minister taking the plea that the order had been issued without his knowledge.

The episode demonstrates how easily the law of criminal defamation lends itself to large-scale abuse by an intolerant administration. More than the ultimate outcome, the trial itself is extremely onerous, demanding the personal appearance of journalists, editors, and publishers before magistrates in any corner of the land — a process that the Supreme Court itself has recognised as "oppressive." Defamation is one of the grounds on which reasonable restrictions can be placed on freedom of speech under Article 19(1)(a) of the Constitution. Yet for the state and the criminal justice system to throw their weight behind one person's right to vindicate his reputation as against another has a chilling effect on free speech. In the case of public officials in particular, the threat of criminal defamation militates against media and public vigilance over their functioning. The Supreme Court has laid down that public officials can file civil suits for defamation only if the publication is made "with reckless disregard for truth," and it would be invidious if a lesser standard were applied to the serious criminal charge of defamation. Most democratic countries have moved away from criminal defamation, either letting it fall into disuse or removing it from the statute book — even in the neighbourhood Sri Lanka under Prime Minister Ranil Wickramasinghe abolished it in 2003. It is time the Government of India removed the offence of criminal defamation from the Indian Penal Code.

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