Delhi HC: Journalist cannot be held liable for defamation when reporting is factually correct

The court delivered the verdict on November 17, while dealing with a petition filed by journalist Nilanjana Bhowmick (former bureau chief of Times Magazine), in 2021to quash the defamation case filed in 2014 by activist Ravi Nair.

A journalist cannot be held liable for defamation when the information published is factually accurate, irrespective of the style or tone used by the journalist, said the Delhi High Court in a ruling released last week.

A bench of justice Neena emphasised that the tone which a journalist uses to present facts falls within the domain of writing skill.

A bench of justice Neena emphasised that the tone which a journalist uses to present facts falls within the domain of writing skill.

“The manner in which a journalist or an article writer presents the facts is a skill of writing, but when the reported matter is factually correct, then it cannot be termed as an act of defamation by the complainant,” the court said.

The court delivered the verdict on November 17, while dealing with a petition filed by journalist Nilanjana Bhowmick (former bureau chief of Times Magazine), in 2021to quash the defamation case filed in 2014 by activist Ravi Nair, and the summons issued by the trial court in 2014 and 2018.

The defamation case had stemmed from an article published by Bhowmick, in Times Magazine in 2010, in which she allegedly defamed Nair and his organisation by implying their involvement in money laundering. The trial court in 2018 had summoned Bhowmick in the defamation case, while closing the proceedings with regard to others. She then approached the high court.

In her petition, Bhowmick had asserted that the article was not based on false assertions or was contrary to the records or judicial findings. The article, she said, was based on facts as law enforcement agencies had indeed investigated the trust at the relevant time, a fact which Nair did not deny.

Nair, on the other hand, opposed the petition, asserting that Bhowmick in the article had compiled false, distorted and defamatory information, alleging non-accountability and transgressions by NGO’s, without ever contacting him.

Ultimately, the court in its 28-page verdict, quashed the case, concluding that the reporting was factually correct and it did not state that Nair was indicted in the said probe. “Whatever discomfort such allegation or investigation may have caused to the respondent, it cannot be termed as defamatory as no part of the reporting was incorrect. To say that by innuendoes and insinuations, there were some acts being attributed to the complainant is an oversensitive attitude of the complainant, and would not be sufficient to constitute defamation,” the court maintained.