In a couple of petitions filed before the Delhi High Court to assail orders whereby the revision petition of the respondents was allowed and a summoning order was issued against the petitioner, a Single Judge Bench of Justice Swarana Kanta Sharma set aside the summoning order, holding that the essential ingredients for defamation under Sections 499 and 500 of the Indian Penal Code, 1860 (IPC) were not made out.
The petitioner was a businessman who had served as the Executive Director of Godfrey Philips India Ltd. (GPIL). On 30-05-2024, during an Audit Committee and Board of Directors meeting at the company’s office in Jasola, Delhi, the petitioner, being a Director, arrived to attend the same but was obstructed by the personal security officer (PSO) of his mother, Dr Bina Modi, who acted on her instructions to assault him, causing a fracture to his right index finger. Following a medical examination confirming the fracture, the petitioner filed a police complaint on 31-05-2024, which culminated in the registration of a First Information Report under Sections 325 and 341 of the IPC.
Thereafter, the respondents filed cases against the petitioner for the commission of offences punishable under Sections 499 and 500 of the IPC, alleging defamation based on a newspaper report in The Economic Times detailing the corporate feud, the inheritance dispute, and the physical assault. The articles included verbatim text from the petitioner’s police complaint enclosed within double quotation marks. Specifically, the extracted complaint statement alleged that his mother and another director orchestrated the assault and that “the other present board members were consenting parties to this assault”. The ACJM dismissed both complaints under Section 203 of the CrPC on 19-05-2025, and ruled that the newspaper article was hearsay, that the statements were lawful communications extracted from a police complaint protecting the petitioner under exception 8 to Section 499 of the IPC, and that the requisite mens rea to defame was absent.
The respondents challenged this dismissal by revision petitions before the sessions court, and by an order dated 14-08-2025, the ACJM’s dismissal was set aside, and the trial court was directed to issue summons. The sessions court reasoned that the benefit of exception 8 could not be given at the summoning stage, that the board members formed an identifiable collection of persons under explanation 2 of Section 499, and that mens rea was inferred because the petitioner allegedly gave an interview to the media. Hence, the ACJM issued a summons to the petitioner on 18-08-2025. Aggrieved, the petitioner approached the Court to set aside the summoning orders and quash the criminal proceedings.
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The Court found it evident that the respondents’ grievance and the foundation of the allegation of defamation were confined to the aforementioned single statement appearing in the news article published on 01-06-2024. The Court segmented the alleged defamatory news articles into two distinct parts: one part recording what the petitioner explicitly told the media reporter regarding his mother, and another part that strictly reproduced text from the police complaint under double quotation marks, followed by the anchor text “the complaint added”. The Court noted that the petitioner made no other specific or direct imputation against the respondents individually.
The Court stated that the portions of the news articles alleged to be defamatory by the respondents formed part of a police complaint that had crystallised into an FIR. It was stated that the respondents were fully aware at the time of filing the complaints that their defamation allegation arose solely from one allegation in the police complaint submitted by the petitioner, which had already become the subject of investigation. The Court referred to various decisions to state that registration of an FIR is a matter in the public domain and faithful reporting of the same could not be treated as an intentional imputation harming reputation.
The Court stated that the sessions court’s reasoning that exception 8 was unavailable to the petitioner since the interview was given to a news agency, which is not a public authority, overlooked a crucial aspect that the respondents had not assailed the contents of the petitioner’s interview to the news agency, but only a line in the news article. Thus, the Court opined that exception 8 to Section 499 of IPC was clearly attracted and that the continuation of criminal proceedings for defamation could not be sustained.
Further, the Court opined that the question of whether the allegations in the FIR were true or false fell within the domain of the investigation agency and the trial court adjudicating the matter as per law. The Court emphasised that allowing defamation trials merely because a police complaint was reported by the media would result in parallel proceedings and micro-adjudicate the veracity of a pending criminal investigation.
The Court concluded that the essential ingredients of criminal defamation under Sections 499 and 500 of the IPC were not made out at the threshold and considered the applicability of exception 8. Thus, the Court allowed the petitions, set aside the impugned summoning order, and quashed all consequential criminal proceedings against the petitioner.
Appearances:
For Petitioner – Mr. Sidharth Agarwal (Sr. Adv), Ms. Simran Lakhwinder Singh, Mr. Toyesh Tewari, Mr. Agastya Sen, Mr, Sharya Mittal
For Respondent – Mr. Mohit Mathur (Sr. Adv), Mr. Karan Sharma, Mr. Mohit Siwach