'Defamation proceeding maintainable against political party': Karnataka HC rejects BJP plea

Bengaluru: When an entity, whether incorporated or not, is inclusively defined by a statute as a ‘person’, it can maintain a proceeding for the offence of defamation, the High Court of Karnataka has ruled. 

Justice Krishna S Dixit noted this while dismissing the BJP's petition challenging defamation proceedings initiated by Rizwan Arshad, the Congress MLA from Bengaluru's Shivajinagar. 

Arshad had approached the court, alleging defamatory tweets against him posted by the BJP handle. 

The BJP argued in the high court that a political party was not a ‘person’, the same being only a ‘society’ or ‘association of persons’. Such entities do not fit into the word ‘whoever’ employed in both IPC sections 499 and 500, and therefore, such proceedings are not maintainable, it contended. 

Justice Dixit noted there was no difference between a corporate entity, which obviously is a legal person, and an unincorporated body of individuals, which fits into the statutory inclusive definition of ‘person’. 

"..in other words, the idea of reputation is not ‘natural person’ specific. Even legal persons like governments, companies, deities, (and) trade unions, can also have (a) reputation. As a corollary of this, there can be a proceeding of this kind against such persons as well. An argument to the contrary does not stand to the rules of reason and justice. Therefore, I am of the considered opinion that the word ‘whoever’ inter alia employed in sections 499 & 500 of IPC implicitly includes an association of individuals, whether incorporated or not, like the petitioner herein and such entities can be arrayed as accused in criminal proceedings of the kind,” the court said. 

The court perused the tweets and said that by no stretch of the imagination can they be said to be innocent/innocuous. The court also observed that, unlike private individuals, politicians and political parties consciously expose themselves to close scrutiny by the public, and therefore, they have to display a greater degree of tolerance. 

"A vibrant democracy like ours warrants reasonable protection of the reputation of political parties and elected representatives of the people. Therefore, the tort or offence of defamation cannot be viewed leniently merely because (the) punishment prescribed for the offence is not stringent. Excluding political parties from the purview of Sections 499 and 500 would deleteriously mask this perspective,” Justice Dixit said.