Cause for defamation?

damages and compensation

Solon lamented, “Laws are like spiders’ webs: If some poor weak creature comes up against them, it is caught; but a big one can break through and get away.” Oliver Goldsmith was equally forceful: “Laws grind the poor, and rich men rule the law.” There are instances galore which testify to the discriminatory application of laws. Judge Cadena referred to the case of a Houston policeman who was awarded two years’ probation for pleading guilty to possessing 76 pounds of marijuana though a San Antonio youth was sentenced to 25 years in jail for possession of 16 marijuana cigarettes. Similarly, Indians were treated shabbily at the hands of the British in the garb of the law. An Indian was sentenced to three weeks of hard labour because he defended himself when some dogs, owned by an Englishman, attacked him.

The award of Rs 100 crore as compensation to Justice (retd) P B Sawant by a Pune court for defamation has raised serious questions not only about the freedom of the press but also about the compensation policy in general. Sawant had sued Times Global Broadcasting Company (TGBC), which owns TV channel TIMES NOW, for defamation and claimed a damage of Rs 100 crore. On September 10, 2008, the channel telecast a story about the Ghaziabad district court Provident Fund Scam wherein Justice P K Samantha, a serving judge of the Calcutta High Court, was alleged to have been involved.

While airing the said story, the channel inadvertently showed the picture of Sawant. This happened only once for 15 seconds only. The channel telecast apology on its scroll, though belatedly, from September 23 for five days. However, this did not satisfy Sawant as the corrigendum was not issued immediately. The lower court allowed his claim. The Bombay high court admitted the appeal against it but refused to grant stay on the execution of decree and asked TGBC to deposit Rs 20 crore in six weeks and bank guarantee of Rs 80 crore in 10 weeks. A special leave petition (SLP) was filed against this order in the Supreme Court which refused to interfere with the direction of the high court.

The question that arises is how the claim of such a gargantuan amount was allowed and that too in such a short time? Indian courts are not known for granting such high compensation. A history of sort has been created that the court has allowed the claim of Rs 100 crore. Even in cases of death in police custody, the court grants a compensation of Rs 50,000 or Rs 1 lakh, though it is proved that the victim was tortured and killed. Recently, the Supreme Court reduced the compensation, which was already meagre, in the Uphaar fire tragedy case.

Incomparable amounts

In the Bhopal gas tragedy case, the Supreme Court awarded a compensation of $470 million on February 15 when, as per official estimate, the number ofpeople who died was 3,000. At the exchange rate of 1989, it amounted to Rs 58,166 per victim. Now compare it with Rs 100 crore awarded for defamation caused by the wrong display of photograph for 15 seconds, and for which apology was tendered. The life of a common man is worth much less compared to the dignity of a former judge when it is not even certain that the reputation was actually damaged. Besides, the speed with which the case has been decided also speaks volumes about our legal process. Sawant filed the suit on November 13, 2008 and on April 26, 2011, the court delivered its judgment awarding Rs 100 crore to the plaintiff. Countless defamation cases are pending for decades, and the aggrieved parties get only next dates. S Nambi Narayanan, then head at the Indian Space research Organisation (ISRO), was falsely implicated in an espionage case.

He was in-charge of the cryogenic project, and it was he who introduced the liquid fuel rocket technology in India in the early 1970s while A P J Abdul Kalam’s team worked on solid motors. He developed the ‘vikas’ engine used today by all ISRO rockets, including the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) that took Chandrayaan-1 to the moon on October 22, 2008. In 1994, Narayanan was charged with selling ISRO secrets for millions to two alleged Maldivian intelligence officers, Marian Rasheeda and Fauzia Hassan. He, along with another scientist D Sasikumaran, was alleged to have leaked secrets pertaining to the highly confidential “flight test data” from experiments with rocket and satellite launches.

Narayanan was put behind bars and tortured. He suffered acute mental and physical agony and his wife lost her mental equilibrium. The CBI found the whole case against him false. He filed a case of suit of defamation claiming a compensation of Rs 1 crore in the civil court, Thiruananthpuram in 1999, and the suit has been pending since then. No body knows when it will be decided. If Sawant’s suit can be decided in one-and-a-half years, why can’t  be other cases? It proves that if the judiciary wants, cases can be disposed of expeditiously. But for that one has to a former judge of the apex court or a VIP. Huge compensation can also be allowed, but again for that one has to be a VIP.

Besides, this case also raises the paramount question of freedom of press. News reporting is a work done in haste, and errors do creep in inadvertently. However, it should not be malicious or deliberate. If a channel or a newspaper has to cough up Rs 100 crore for a slight error because of phonetic similarity in names (Samantha and Sawant), it will not be feasible to run a channel or a newspaper. Justice Sawant has been the chairman of the Press Council which is mandated to protect the freedom of the press. If the judgment of the Pune court in his case is not set aside, it may sound the death knell for freedom of press.