2008 Defamation case: HC quashes summoning order of INLD leader Abhay Chautala

Rathee had filed a complaint against Chautala and some other persons in August 2008 alleging that he made defamatory statements against the officer, which were published in various newspapers, and has caused irreparable loss/damage to his reputation

The Punjab and Haryana high court (HC) has quashed the summoning of Indian National Lok Dal (INLD) leader Abhay Chautala, passed by a Gurugram court on the complaint of a former Indian Police Service (IPS) officer Param Vir Rathee.

Acting on Rathee’s complaint, a Gurugram court had summoned Chautala in 2010. (Getty Images/iStockphoto)

Rathee had filed a complaint against Chautala and some other persons in August 2008 alleging that he made defamatory statements against the officer, which were published in various newspapers, and has caused irreparable loss/damage to his reputation.

Acting on Rathee’s complaint, a Gurugram court had summoned him in 2010. The order was challenged by Chautala before additional district and sessions court, which upheld the order. This order was under challenge before the high court.

The HC bench of justice Anoop Chitkara quashed the summoning order, observing that during the preliminary evidence led by Rathee it was not established that Chautala who had made the alleged defamatory statements was aware of the clarification carried in newspapers subsequent to an article based on which those alleged defamatory statements were made by Chautala. “..The complaint does not utter a single word of any prior ill-will of the petitioner against the complainant. The complainant did not plead in the complaint or establish in his testimony in the preliminary evidence any oblique motive, malice, ill-will, mala fide intention of the petitioner, or intention to defame him. Given the above, it is a fit case for this court to prevent the abuse of the process of law because the allegations made in the complaint and the preliminary evidence do not point out that the public statements allegedly made by the petitioner were made with any malicious intent against the complainant,” the court said dismissing the summoning order.