Can a Police Complaint Be Defamatory? Delhi High Court Says Mere Filing Does Not By Itself Constitute Defamation

Dismissing the Regular First Appeal under Section 96 read with Order XLI of the Code of Civil Procedure, 1908, Justice Neena Bansal Krishna upheld the District Judge's judgment of 16 August 2024 rejecting the plaint under Order VII Rule 11 CPC.

The Court observed, "The alleged statement of being connected to goons, was made in the context of having a threat to his life from the Plaintiff. It cannot be isolated from its context, to claim that it was per se defamatory."

The appellant, Jai Gupta, pleaded that he had practised at Patiala House Courts from September 1989 until mid-2018. The respondent, Sunil Kumar Roy, was also an advocate there, occupied a neighbouring chamber and, according to the plaint, frequently visited the appellant's chamber "to seek legal advice and have tea with him".

The two sides gave very different accounts of the money that changed hands in May 2017. Gupta's case was that he lent Roy ₹2,00,000 on 29 May 2017 against a post-dated cheque of 29 August 2017, which he refrained from presenting on Roy's assurances that he would repay once his finances improved. Roy's case was that Gupta had agreed to sell him Chamber No. 174 for ₹12,00,000, that he had paid ₹1,00,000 in cash and handed over the cheque as bayana, and that Gupta then backed out of the deal.

On 3 March 2022, the two men met at Patiala House Courts and an altercation followed. Gupta alleged that Roy assaulted him, and his medical examination recorded mild swelling on the lower lip and nail-scratch marks below the right eye. Roy, for his part, alleged that Gupta abused and manhandled him. Each lodged a complaint at Police Station Tilak Marg the same day, Roy's being recorded as DD No. 60A and Gupta's as DD No. 63. Gupta separately filed a summary suit under Order XXXVII CPC to recover the ₹2,00,000 with interest, which the judgment records as pending trial.

The defamation suit was founded on one sentence in Roy's complaint. The High Court reproduced the complaint in full. After alleging that Gupta had said "Agar Dubara Paise Maange to jaan se maar dunga", Roy wrote, "People gathered there & somehow I saved myself that this man is very influencing & have roots in the goons & bad elements of the society & I have fear & threat to my life."

Gupta claimed damages of ₹10,00,000 with interest at 12 per cent, pleading that the statement was false and malicious, that Roy knew it would form part of police records "and would be seen by several persons", and that it was likely to circulate within the legal fraternity. Roy, in his written statement and later in his application under Order VII Rule 11 read with Section 151 CPC, contended that reporting a grievance to a law-enforcement agency did not amount to defamation and that Gupta had not named a single person in whose eyes his reputation had been lowered.

The District Judge accepted that objection and held that a police complaint could not give rise to a cause of action for defamation, and that the sentence could not be read in isolation from the substance of the complaint. The earlier decision of the High Court in Rakesh Bhardwaj v. Jai Gupta, CM(M) 931/2018, was held to be distinguishable.

Before the High Court, Gupta argued that the trial court had relied on extraneous facts not found in the plaint and on judgments whose facts were not in pari materia. He contended that the "goons" imputation was "completely out of context, unconnected and totally irrelevant" to the rest of the complaint, which concerned cheating and assault, and that it was per se defamatory, so that no proof of actual damage was required. He relied on Rakesh Bhardwaj, on Major General M.S. Ahluwalia v. M/s Tehelka.com for the distinction between per se defamatory words and other statements, and on Ram Singh Batra v. Sharan Premi, 133 (2006) DLT 126. He also urged that a complaint which was closed after inquiry, with no FIR registered, stood on a different footing from one on which an FIR had been lodged.

Roy's counsel replied that the entire case rested on "a solitary statement" on which no action had been taken, which could not be regarded as defamatory when read in the context of the complaint as a whole, and that there was no evidence of any publication that had lowered Gupta's reputation.

What are the Essential elements of Civil defamation?

The Court began with the definition in Salmond & Heuston on the Law of Torts, under which a defamatory statement is one which "has a tendency to injure the reputation of the person to whom it refers; which tends to lower him in the estimation of right thinking members of society generally…", and with the formulation of Cave J. in Scott v. Sampson of defamation as a "false statement about a man to his discredit".

It then set out the essential elements of civil defamation, "(i) that there was a statement made which was defamatory; (ii) that such statement was published; (iii) such imputation was made with the intention or knowledge or having reason to believe that it will harm the reputation of the person about whom it is made; (iv) that such statement, so published, has a tendency to lower the reputation in the eyes of the members of the society."

Framing "the most pertinent question" as "whether the Complaint made to the Police for redress of grievance, attracts protection from a civil action for defamation", the Court surveyed a long line of authority. It noted Watson v. M'Ewan on the protection extending to preliminary steps in the administration of justice; the Madras High Court's decisions in M/s Bapalal and Co. and K. Ramadass, which treated complaints to the police as absolutely privileged; and the Calcutta decisions in Golap Jan v. Bholanath Khettry and Madhab Chandra Ghosh v. Nirode Chandra Ghosh.

The Court also recorded the contrary current. In Majju v. Lachman Prasad, a Full Bench of the Allahabad High Court had held that a police complaint which did not lead to judicial proceedings was not privileged, and in Rakesh Bhardwaj a defamation suit based on a police complaint had been held maintainable. Against these, the Court placed Prof. Imtiaz Ahmad v. Durdana Zamir, Vijay Gulati v. Radhika, the Patna Division Bench in Bira Garari v. Dulhin Somaria (which held that the privilege does not depend on whether judicial proceedings actually begin or whether the information is later found false or malicious), Mahavir Singh v. Surinder Singh and A.N. Shanmugam v. G. Saravanan.

The Court held, "The aforesaid judgments indicate that mere filing of a complaint with the Police does not, by itself, constitute defamation. The nature and context of the alleged imputation, the question of publication, and the applicability of privilege must also be considered."

Turning to the merits, the Court held that the sentence could not be prised out of the complaint in which it appeared, "Even on merits, the sole statement on which the Plaintiff has relied has been made in the context of the Defendant fearing for his life and apprehension of a threat from the Plaintiff. When read in that context, the statement cannot be considered defamatory per se."

Testing it against the definition of defamation, the Court added that "This single Statement, made in the Complaint, per se does not fit into the definition of 'defamation' or cannot be termed to be one, which results in loss of reputation, in the eyes of the society."

The Court reiterated, relying on Mahavir Singh, Prof. Imtiaz Ahmad and A.N. Shanmugam, that publication is an essential ingredient of an action for defamation, and found the plaint wanting on that score, "Moreover, this statement in the Complaint cannot be termed as publication. Further, there is not a single averment in the Plaint to show that there were other people who heard this particular statement or that the estimation of the Plaintiff was lowered in their eyes. No public person has been named, who witnessed the incident and in whose estimation the reputation of the plaintiff, was lowered."

On intention, the Court held that the statement had been made in good faith, "Moreover, there is nothing to show that there was any harm caused to the reputation of the Plaintiff. It is evident that this statement had been made by him in good faith, to protect his own life from the perceived threat from the Plaintiff and not with an intent to harm the reputation of the Plaintiff."

Concluding that "the learned District Judge has rightly rejected the Plaint, as not disclosing any cause of action", the Court held that there was no merit in the appeal and dismissed it, disposing of the pending applications.