New Delhi: A Delhi court has rejected Dainik Jagran’s injunction application which sought to have an Alt News article taken down, alleging that this article was defamatory and carried “misleading” information, LiveLaw has reported.
Civil Judge Chitranshi Arora of the Saket district court noted that, since Alt News’s defence stands a chance to succeed at trial, there was no need for the court to intervene at the current stage.
The Alt News article from May 30 of this year titled, ‘Dainik Jagran’s misleading reports portray mass burials in Prayagraj haven’t risen due to COVID’ stated that the Hindi daily’s piece made it seem as if the mass graves at Prayagraj’s Shringverpur ghat was a yearly occurrence and was not due to COVID-19.
The article went on to say that Dainik Jagran “attempted to normalise the deaths by portraying there has been no increase due to the pandemic and such mass burials have always been taking place.”
Dainik Jagran claimed that the article contained false and incorrect information as well as disparaging remarks which implied that the petitioner was “complicit in putting forth misleading information about mass burials in Prayagraj.”
It was also stated that Dainik Jagran’s story contained “no incorrect information” and only wanted to bring to the public’s notice that mass burials at the Shringverpur ghat “were a regular occurrence caused not only by COVID-19.” The petitioner thus sought for the court to issue an injunction to Alt News to remove the article and to direct the defendants to issue an unconditional apology, Bar and Bench reported.
Alt News, on its part, argued that the petition was in contravention of the freedom of the press as included under the fundamental right of freedom of expression guaranteed under Article 19 (1) (a) of the constitution. It further argued that the current petition was a ‘strategic lawsuit against public participation’ (SLAPP).
The defence also stated that the article in question was written after extensive research, reviews of media reports, on-ground investigation and recorded conversations with authorities. It went on to contend that all the information contained within the article was factually correct.
Bodies buried in the sand on the banks of Ganga
river, as coronavirus cases surge, in Unnao district, Thursday, May 13, 2021. Photo: PTI
The court perused the respective arguments and relevant extracts from the article in question and determined that Alt News had a probable defence in the case and that the matter must go to trial in order to reach a conclusion.
Thus, dismissing the application for injunction, the bench observed that, “There is no certainty that [the] defendant’s defence would fail at trial and there is an equal chance that the defendants may succeed in proving the same. In such circumstances, the plaintiff has failed to establish a prima facie case in his favour, since a reasonable and probable defence has been raised by the defendants, which needs determination at trial.”
Civil Judge Arora also remarked that freedom of speech assumes an even greater significance when the matter is one of larger public concern. In light of this, she noted that “the mass burials in the state of UP during the horrific second wave of the pandemic Covid-19” were, of course, of concern to the masses in India.
SOURCE ; THE WIRE
Social media is bold.
Social media is young.
Social media raises questions.
Social media is not satisfied with an answer.
Social media looks at the big picture.
Social media is interested in every detail.
social media is curious.
Social media is free.
Social media is irreplaceable.
But never irrelevant.
Social media is you.
(With input from news agency language)
If you like this story, share it with a friend!
We are a non-profit organization. Help us financially to keep our journalism free from government and corporate pressure
0 Comments