- It was ruled by the Supreme Court that a minister or public employee (a person protected by Section 199(2)) can submit a private complaint alleging defamation and is not required to follow the specific procedure outlined in Section 199(2) & (4) CrPC, according to the Supreme Court.
- Manish Sisodia, a minister in the Delhi government, filed a complaint regarding the commission of the offences under Sections 499 and 500 read with Sections 34 and 35 of the Indian Penal Code before Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate, Rouse Avenue Courts. The summons order was contested by the accused before the Delhi High Court.
- The High Court denied these petitions, thus the accused appealed to the Supreme Court. Before the Supreme Court, Manoj Tiwari’s sole argument was that the Court shouldn’t have accepted a private complaint under Section 200 Cr.P.C., particularly one from a person covered by Section 199(2) of the Code, without first completing the steps outlined in Section 199’s subsection (4).
- The issue raised before the Court was whether a minister or a public servant can file a private complaint alleging defamation without following the special procedures prescribed by Section 199(2) and 199(4) of CrPC.
- The court observed that it is true that under Section 237 subsection (3), the court has the authority to order a public employee to provide justification as to why he should not pay damages to a person accused of committing the crime of defamation in situations where the court not only discharges or acquits the accused but also believes there was no reasonable cause for making the statement in question. Section 237 was not a new idea but only a new format that featured what was previously found in sub-sections (6) through (11) of Section 198B of the previous Code from 1898.
- When a person uses subsection (6) of Section 199, it is not as though there is no such safety valve against prosecution by a person without a good reason. By virtue of Section 199(6), whenever a person is brought before a Magistrate for prosecution by a public employee acting alone, the accused is always entitled to compensation under Section 250 on the grounds that the accusation was made without reasonable cause. This, the Code’s Section 237 has no effect in this case.
- The summoning order from the Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate, dated November 28, 2019, makes no mention of the content of Shri Vijender Gupta’s tweets.
- The statements such as “I will expose you”, “I will expose your corrupt practices” and “I will expose the scam in which you are involved, etc.” are not by themselves defamatory unless there is something more.
- Thus it was decided to dismiss the appeal which was brought by Shri Manoj Kumar Tiwari. The summoning order dated 28.11.2019 issued by the Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate-I was set aside.
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