Validity of Defamation Law

The law of defamation is nothing but an endeavor to balance the two constitutional rights, to live with human dignity on one side and to be able to exercise the right to freedom of speech on the other. The law of defamation permits to sue those who injure a person’s reputation publicly.
However, defamation law, today, is being surrounded by a lot of controversies raising a fundamental question of its constitutional validity. Tina Ahuja filed a petition in the Supreme Court challenging the constitutional validity of defamation law, i.e. Section 199 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 (CrPC) and Sections 499 and 500 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC). Section 500 of the IPC provides for the punishment for defamation which may either be simple imprisonment for a term which may extend upto two years or with fine, or with both. These provisions were questioned by the petitioner for being in violation to the right to freedom of speech and expression guaranteed by the Constitution under Article 19 (1) (a).
The petition was taken up by a vacation bench which was presided over by Justice R. K. Agrawal who stayed the summons that were issued against Tina by the Delhi city court on a complaint filed by her father-in-law, Subhash Ahuja. Subhash Ahuja had filed a complaint with the city court arguing that the allegations made by Tina in the petition under the Domestic Violence Act amounted to defamation against him.
The Hon’ble Supreme Court, while setting aside proceedings against the petitioner, tagged her petition along with the one filed by Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi, BJP leader Subramanian Swamy, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, and others assaying de-criminalisation of the laws of defamation.
It was further added by the petitioner that defamation was criminalised in both, England and India, by Lord Macaulay so as to provide protection to the aristocratic and the dominating class. Lord Macaulay had also asked to break the very backbone of India so as to make the country a truly dominated nation, in the British Parliament in 1835. In addition to these contentions, the petitioner had also mentioned examples of the country like the UK, the US, Sri Lanka, Maldives, Ireland and other countries, wherein defamation laws are no longer in existence.
Defamation law is expected to provide protection to a person’s reputation from unreasonable attack. However, in practice, it hinders the freedom to free speech and tends to protect powerful people from scrutiny. And therefore strategies for people to question the oppressive use of the law of defamation needs to be evolved.
There are various basic defects in the legal system as well, which includes cost in the form of legal fees, complexity and selective application. Moreover, the cases of defamation are filed, at times, years after the statement under consideration has taken place. Over and above that the cases often take years to come to a conclusion. As the old saying goes, “Justice delayed is justice denied.” As a consequence of this, defamation law has not been able to fulfil the purposes that it was required to.