Supreme Court: Homebuyers have right to raise grievances

The 2016 defamation case against residents will proceed, as the Bombay HC in June 2024 denied them relief and ordered them to stand trial.

The Supreme Court on Thursday held that homebuyers have a right to raise their genuine grievances against builders by organising peaceful protests and putting up banners to espouse their grievances in a language that is not rude or abusive as it quashed a defamation case initiated by a Mumbai-based developer to silence homebuyers who resorted to this unique form of protest to showcause defaults in constructions of their housing project in Borivali.

The defamation case against the residents was initiated in 2016 against which the Bombay high court in June 2024 refused to grant them relief and ordered them to face trial. (Representative photo)(Pixabay)

A bench headed by justice KV Viswanathan said that just as developers have a right of commercial speech to advertise their flats, the homebuyers have a constitutional right to vent their grievances through peaceful protest, especially when their actions are within the ‘Lakshman Rekha’ and they have cautiously avoided transgressing into the offending zone.

The top court ruling came as a reprieve to seven homebuyers of a housing society in Mumbai’s Borivali who were dragged to court by A Surti Developers for putting up banners against the company outside the housing complex that made public aware about the deficiencies in the project comprising 128 flats.

The banners came up in August 2015, approximately 18 months after the residents got possession of their flats. They protested over the developer’s attitude in not forming the society, not giving society accounts, not co-operating with some residents, not attending to builders’ defects, not sorting water, lift and plumbing issues, apart from shabby garden, broken podium, and defective approach roads.

The defamation case against the residents was initiated in 2016 against which the Bombay high court in June 2024 refused to grant them relief and ordered them to face trial.

The top court bench, also comprising justice N Kotiswar Singh, said, “Their case wholly falls within the sweep, scope and ambit of exception 9 to Section 499,” which protects any statement made in good faith. “Their peaceful protest is protected by Article 19(1)(a), (b) and (c) of the Constitution of India (dealing with right to free speech and expression). The criminal proceedings levelled against them, if allowed to continue, will be a clear abuse of process.”

Justice Viswanathan, writing the judgment for the bench said, “Homebuyers and developers have not always been the best of friends. Instances are innumerable where the two have been at daggers drawn. This case presents one such instance. Not satisfied with the services provided by the respondent-developer and when, according to them, repeated entreaties did not elicit a response, the appellant-home buyers decided to resort to a unique form of protest.”

On scrutiny of the language employed by the residents in their banners, the bench said, “Language is the vehicle through which thoughts are conveyed. Had the appellants exceeded their privilege in erecting the banner? We do not think so.”

The court set aside the HC order and quashed the criminal defamation proceedings and said, “A right to protest peacefully without falling foul of the law is a corresponding right, which the consumers ought to possess just as the seller enjoys his right to commercial speech. Any attempt to portray them as criminal offences, when the necessary ingredients are not made out, would be a clear abuse of process and should be nipped in the bud.”

Stating that in any given case, language used will matter for attracting ingredients of defamation, in the present case, the bench was convinced that the “careful choice of the words, the conscious avoidance of intemperate, rude or abusive language and the peaceful manner of protest” pointed out that the residents acted in good faith without any malice.

“The manner of the protest resorted to by the appellants was peaceful and orderly and without in any manner using offensive or abusive language. It could not be said that the appellants crossed the Lakshman Rekha and transgressed into the offending zone,” the judgment concluded.