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Swamy attacks Modi government's refusal to decriminalize defamation
New Delhi, July 14
Attacking the Narendra Modi regime's refusal to decriminalize
defamation, BJP leader Subramanian Swamy on Tuesday told the Supreme
Court that the government's stand was "strange".
"The government
has said that the person may not be able to pay. This paucity of funds
is a strange argument, so criminal defamation is an appropriate remedy,"
Swamy told a bench of Justice Dipak Misra and Justice Prafulla C. Pant
that is examining the validity of penal provisions relating to criminal
defamation.
"To defame someone, a person must have the status to
do so. He can't be that low in the social order," Swamy told the court
thrashing the government stand on retaining criminal defamation as a
person accused of defamation may not be in a position to shell out
money.
Arguing for the junking of the law which even its framers
(British) have given up, he said that this law made it oppressive for
every free-thinking person to express his views as it made truth in
public interest a limited defence.
There is a social opprobrium
associated with criminal prosecution of a person, Swamy told the court
as he pointed out that even jokes and cartoons could not escape the
rigour of the law.
Besides Swamy, Congress vice president Rahul
Gandhi, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, NGO Foundation For Media
Professionals and others in a batch of petitions have challenged the
constitutional validity of sections 499 and 500 of the Indian Penal Code
providing for criminal defamation.