"Typical Yellow Journalism!" Supreme Court Refuses Relief To Journalist Convicted For Defamatory Articles Against a Lawyer

While refusing to grant relief to a journalist convicted in 2015 for publishing defamatory articles against an Advocate, the Supreme Court on Friday made remarks against the language used by the journalist in the impugned articles.

"This kind of language you use and claim you're a journalist?" Justice Surya Kant remarked

"Look at the the language!" Justice Kohli said

"Typical Yellow Journalism", Justice Kant added

"They were very liberal only one month conviction. He deserves more than that." CJI Ramana said

A Bench comprising CJI NV Ramana, Justice Surya Kant and Justice Hima Kohli refused to entertain a special leave petition filed by the Journalist against Karnataka High Court's order upholding the order of conviction

The High Court through the impugned order had upheld the order of conviction passed by the Trial Court in 2009 and upheld by Appellate Court in 2015.

The High Court had however modified the sentence directing him to undergo simple imprisonment for a period of one month and pay a fine of Rs.50,000. Further a fine amount of Rs.50,000, a d a sum of Rs.40,000 was directed to be paid to the complainant as compensation and the balance of Rs.10,000 to be remitted to the State.

In the present case, a private complaint was made against the accused for the offence punishable under Section 501 IPC. The Complaint had alleged that the accused who is the Editor, Printer and Publisher of Kannada weekly newspaper 'Tunga Varthe', had published several news articles in his newspaper making baseless allegations against the complainant with an intention to defame him and cause harm to his reputation.

The High Court had noted that the petitioner made repeated publications and used offensive language against the complainant who is an advocate and notary.

"The material on record would also go to show that the accused was earlier convicted for similar offence, but that has not deterred him from continuing to make publications which are defamatory in nature." the order said

The High Court had observed that when the language used in the publication is highly offensive and clearly amounting to character assassination of a person, by merely pleading that the said publication were made in good faith, the accused who has indulged in using such language cannot get away.

The Bench had also observed that for the purpose of getting the benefits of the exceptions under Section 499 IPC, the accused is required to prove that the imputations in the publication were made in good faith for the public good and he had no intention to defame the person as against whom the publication is made.

Case Title: D.S. Vishwanatha Shetty vs TN Rathnaraj

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