New Delhi – The Supreme Court on Monday observed that it is high time defamation should be decriminalised as it stayed trial proceedings against news portal The Wire in a case filed by former JNU professor Amita Singh. The complaint pertained to a news report alleging that Singh submitted a dossier on an alleged sex racket at Jawaharlal Nehru University.
A bench of Justices MM Sundresh and SC Sharma noted the prolonged nature of the case, asking, “For how long can you keep on dragging this matter?” The court issued notice on a petition filed by the Foundation for Independent Journalism, which runs the portal, and allowed the petition to be tagged with other pending defamation cases.
Senior advocate Kapil Sibal, representing the petitioner, referred to Congress leader Rahul Gandhi’s petition challenging a summons in a defamation case linked to his remarks on VD Savarkar. The Supreme Court stayed trial proceedings while considering the broader issues.
The case traces back to 2016 when Singh, in her capacity as Chairperson of the Centre for the Study of Law and Governance at JNU, filed a defamation complaint against The Wire and its deputy editor Ajoy Ashirwad Mahaprastha. The news report allegedly damaged her reputation and sparked a hate campaign on social media.
The Delhi High Court had earlier refused to quash the trial court summons, prompting the Foundation to approach the Supreme Court. In July last year, the Supreme Court had directed continuation of the trial, while also instructing the magistrate’s court to reassess the issuance of summons after noting errors in the high court’s previous judgment.
Singh has denied the report’s claims and said she faced widespread defamation online. Meanwhile, JNU stated it did not receive any dossier as mentioned in the article.
