The Supreme Court on Friday allowed an early hearing to a writ petition filed by DMDK founder and Leader of the Opposition in the Tamil Nadu Assembly Vijayakant to quash a criminal defamation complaint filed against him by the State government for comments made in connection with the Aavin milk scam.
The complaint was made by the City Public Prosecutor on behalf of B.V. Ramanaa, Minister for Milk and Diary Development Department.
Mr. Vijayakant has challenged the constitutional validity of Sections 499 and 500 of the Indian Penal Code (relating to criminal defamation), contending that these provisions violated the fundamental rights guaranteed under Article 19 (1) (a) of the Constitution on freedom of speech and expression.
Appearing for Mr. Vijayakant, advocate G.S. Mani, submitted before a Bench of Justices Dipak Misra and Prafulla C. Pant that the petition should be heard at the earliest because the court had summoned his client on January 21 in the case.
The Bench agreed on the urgency, and proceeded to list the matter for hearing on January 19.
In his preliminary submissions, Mr. Mani said the complaint was lodged without even looking into the content of the alleged defamatory statement published in a Tamil daily. He said the comments classified only as a “fair criticism” made by the Leader of Opposition against the government in general regarding corruption in the department and not against Mr. Ramanaa's conduct in the discharge of his public functions.
Counsel contended that a number of corrupt officials face criminal action and a probe is now on into the scam. He submitted that the provisions of criminal defamation were being misused to hush the voices of opposition leaders like Mr. Vijayakant.
This petition follows a similar one by BJP leader Dr. Subramanian Swamy, which alleged that the Tamil Nadu government, at the instance of former Chief Minister Jayalalithaa, had resorted to filing hundreds of criminal cases against citizens, members of the public and more particularly members of the Press to suppress their free speech and muzzle dissent.
He had also sought the quashing of Section 499 and 500 of IPC, contending that “these provisions are a throwback to an earlier repressive British regime and they run counter to the international benchmarks on freedom, particularly of the media.”
In October last year, the apex court, acting on Dr. Swamy's petition, suspended defamation proceedings in five cases initiated by the Tamil Nadu government against him. It had further issued notice to the Central government, the Tamil Nadu government and Ms. Jayalalithaa.
