New Delhi4 minutes ago
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The Supreme Court said on Monday that the time has come to exclude defamation from the category of crime. The bench of Justice MM Sundaresh and Justice Satish Chandra Sharma was hearing a defamation case filed against a media institute in 2016 by former JNU Professor Amita Singh.
The report of the media institute claimed that Professor Amita Singh had prepared a doseer (document), in which JNU was described as the hub of pornographic activities and terrorism. Amita Singh alleges that the reporter and the editor published this news without checking the truth, which damaged her reputation.
During the hearing, senior advocate Kapil Sibal agreed with the court on the orders of Justice Sundaresh and said that Rahul Gandhi’s case is also under consideration. After this, the Supreme Court sent a notice to Professor Amita Singh.
In 2017, summons was sent to the media institution for the first time
In 2017, a metropolitan court in Delhi sent summons to the Editor and Deputy Editor of the Media Institute in the defamation case. In 2023, the Delhi High Court canceled the summons. But in 2024, the Supreme Court reversed the High Court verdict and sent the case again to the Magistrate Court.
After this, in May 2025, the High Court again justified summons. The media institute and deputy editor appealed against this to the Supreme Court. The petition stated,
Now the new law is in force in the Indian Code (BNSS). According to its section 223, the hearing of the case should be held at the initial level.
However, the High Court believes that since the complaint is of 2016, the new law will not be applicable. Actually, India is one of the few democratic countries where defamation is still considered a criminal offense.
The Supreme Court described the defamation law in 2016 as necessary
Section 356 of the Indian Code of Justice (BNS) provides punishment for this. Earlier the same provision was in Section 499 of the IPC, whose constitutional validity was justified by the Supreme Court in 2016.
In 2016, the Supreme Court in the Subramanian Swamy vs. Government of India case said that criminal defamation law is a “necessary ban” on the freedom to speak and it protects people’s lives and respect.
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