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Synopsis

The Allahabad High Court has quashed all the proceedings in a defamation case filed against Bhartiya Janta Party MP Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh by Advocate and freelance journalist Dr. Mohd. Kamran.

The bench of Justice Mohd Faiz Alam Khan passed the order in a plea moved by Singh for quashing the summoning order issued against him by the Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate-III (MP/ MLA), Lucknow on January 10 and the entire case proceedings. The ACJM court had summoned Singh to face trial under Section 500 of the IPC. 

Allegations against Singh were that he wrote letters to Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath and Chief Secretary of Uttar Pradesh defaming Adv Kamran. Allegedly, in the letters dated September 25, 2022, Singh accused Kamran of being a blackmailer, and the letters were also printed in some newspapers. Therefore, Kamran claimed that Singh spoiled his reputation in the eyes of his friends, relatives, and the general public.

Before the high court, Singh's counsel argued that the letters, which were stated to have been written by Singh, were confidential documents and there was no iota of evidence or material which could even remotely suggest that Singh had leaked those papers in the media. 

He contended that even if Kamran's case was taken on its face, the same was covered under the 8th Exception of Section 499 of IPC which provides that a public representative is duty bound to bring in knowledge any accusation against any person in the knowledge of those who are having lawful authority over the person with regard to subject matter of accusation.

Apart from that, he argued that when summoning an accused under Section 204 CrPC, the trial court must provide adequate reasons for proceeding further, however, in the present matter, the trial court's order lacked any such reasoning. Moreover, the trial court overlooked the amended Section 202 CrPC, which mandates the court to conduct an inquiry or direct an investigation to determine if there are sufficient grounds for proceeding further as Singh is a resident of another district, he asserted. 

On the other hand, Kamran's counsel contended that at the stage of summoning, only a prima facie case and sufficient grounds are required to be seen.

The high court noted that in the letter to the CM, Singh had stated that various criminal cases pertaining to hatching conspiracy of exhortation, intimidation, theft, and of molestation were registered against Kamran and while he was pursuing his LLB, he was acting as a full-fledged freelance journalist.

Further, court highlighted that the trial court by passing a short order of one page had summoned Singh to face trial for committing offence under Section 500 of IPC. 

"Summoning in a criminal matter is a serious business and the Magistrate or the Trial Court, as the case may be, is obliged to go through the allegations levelled in the complaint in order to ascertain as to whether there are sufficient grounds for proceedings are existing and these sufficient grounds for proceeding further must be distinguished from sufficient ground for conviction, as the duty of the Magistrate is to assess the sufficiency of grounds only for moving further and not for conviction," court said. 

It further held that being a public representative, it is Singh's duty to write about grievances of the persons, whom he represents, and apart from that,  in the present matter, the letters written by Singh were of confidential nature. "The same itself may not amount to any defamation," court opined.

It cannot be said that the letters which have been written by the applicant have been written intentionally with a motive to tarnish the image of the complainant/ opposite party No.2 and these letters appear to have been written, so that public authorities may be made aware of the grievances of the persons, to whom applicant is representing, court emphasised. 

Futhermore, the court held that "the trial court had not taken pains even to consider the prima facie case or the sufficiency of grounds for further proceedings of the case" or even the ingredients of the offence had not been considered.

Initiation of criminal proceedings against any person may not be based only on the statement of the complainant and his two witnesses and no accused should be summoned in a mechanical manner, without there being any sufficient material available in support of these accusations, court said. 

Therefore, while stating that the language used in the letters, which were confidential, did not reflect any intent on the part of Singh to cause harm to the reputation of Kamran and no actual harm had been caused to Singh, court held that both the elements i.e. mens rea and actus reas appeared to be missing in this case.

Accordingly, court held that the case was covered by guidelines No.1 and 7 of the Bhajan Lal Case and therefore, quashed the same. 

Case Title: Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh v. State Of U.P. Thru. Prin. Secy. (Home), Lucknow And Another