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Synopsis

The Supreme Court on Monday reserved its order on a plea filed by India Today Chairperson Aroon Purie against the criminal defamation complaint against him and the author of a news item where allegations were leveled against Indian Officials in the UK for soliciting sexual favors with local employees, financial irregularities and fudging of bills. 

A bench of the Chief Justice of India UU Lalit and Justice Bela M Trivedi was hearing a plea challenging the Delhi High Court's order wherein the High Court refused to quash criminal defamation complaint against India Today Editor in Chief stating that the assertions that news item merely reported facts which were accurate and reflected public records and cannot be held to be defamatory, could not be accepted. "Rather such an assertion and who was responsible for its publication and has it come to the fore of editors require critical examination and hence evidence of these issues is required," the high court held. 

On the question raised by the bench as to what was the source of information, Senior Advocate KV Vishwanathan appearing for Purie, today submitted that there were two complaints used as a source for the article that had alleged sexual harassment against the women.

The Court also noted that there are discrepancies in the dates of the complaints and the dates of the news item which did not match with the factual matrix. On the aspect of the author, the bench said the fact that Saurabh Sharma is the author of the article cannot be replaced, the only thing that has to be checked is whether he comes under the exception.

The Delhi High Court order had stated that Purie was allegedly responsible for the selection of the articles for publication and had knowledge of the fact that the publication of an unsubstantiated story will irreparably harm and damage the reputation of the complainant, however, still he went ahead and got the article published as a chief editor. 

As per the record, the story published by the petitioner was defamatory against the complainant and was allegedly published much prior to the issue of the show-cause notice. Subsequent to this, the complainant was allegedly exonerated from all allegations, but with the publication of the article in question the complainant was allegedly defamed, the high court had noted. 

Case Title: Aroon Purie Vs. State of NCT of Delhi & Ors.