Headlines
SC stays AAP government's anti-defamation circular
New Delhi, May 14
The Supreme Court on
Thursday accused Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal of double
standards after he sought stay on criminal defamation proceedings
against him but his government issued a circular permitting action
against media groups for defamatory reporting.
"Don't you feel
that there is dichotomy between you challenging section 499 and section
500 of the Indian Penal Code relating to defamation and the circular
issued by you," asked the bench of Justice Dipak Misra and Justice
Prafulla C. Pant.
The observations came while hearing an
application by Amit Sibal, seeking vacation of the stay of the
defamation proceedings against Kejriwal initiated by him.
While not accepting the plea for stay, Justice Misra said: "We are not vacating the stay but we are staying the circular."
The
Aam Aadmi Party government had on May 6 issued a circular which said if
any person was aggrieved by any publication of a news item, that person
can refer it to the Delhi home department, which in consultation with
the law department, can grant sanction for prosecution, leading to a
defamation case.
The circular invoked sections 499 (defamation)
and 500 (punishment for defamation) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and
section 199(2) of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC) which Kejriwal
had urged the court to declare unconstitutional in his own defamation
case.
Appearing for Amit Sibal, counsel Abhishek Manu Singhvi
urged the court to vacate the stay on the criminal defamation
proceedings granted by it on May 1 in the defamation case instituted by
Amit Sibal on the allegation of conflict of interest between him and his
then union minister father Kapil Sibal.
Kejriwal and other AAP
leaders had alleged conflict of interest in the responsibilities of
Kapil Sibal, the then telecom minister, with Amit Sibal appearing for
telecom operators in court.
The defamation suit is rooted in a
May 15, 2013 press conference in which Kejriwal had alleged conflict of
interest, saying that Amit Sibal had appeared in the Supreme Court for
Vodafone while his father Kapil Sibal was the communications minister.
While
seeking stay on the defamation proceedings, Kejriwal on May 1 had
sought quashing of CrPC section 199(2) (offence against a public servant
including high signatories), contending they were "excessive, arbitrary
and unreasonable and violative of the right to freedom of speech and
expression".
The court had on May 1 tagged Kejriwal's petition
with that of BJP leader Subramanian Swamy, in which the court is
examining whether section 499 and 500 travelled beyond article 19(2) of
the Constitution that imposes reasonable restriction on the freedom of
speech and expression.