TaxTMI 
TaxTMI 
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2022 (3) TMI 1582
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.... by the defendant No. 1., moved alongwith the plaint, which seeks the following reliefs: "1. Granting an ex-parte, ad-interim injunction in favor of the Plaintiff and against the Defendants by directing the Defendant No. 1 to immediately archive temporarily from his twitter account all the Tweets/posts made against the Plaintiff on 13.03.2021, 14.03.2021, 15.03.2021, 15.06.2021, 16.06.2021, 17.06.2021, 17.06.2021, 17.06.2021, 18.06.2021, 20.06.2021, 26.06.2021, 27.06.2021, 30.06.2021, 01.07.2021, 04.07.2021, 05.07.2021, 10.07.2021, 11.07.2021, 27.07.2021, 19.08.2021 and 20.08.2021. The details of the said tweets with URLs have been mentioned in Schedule-I with the present plaint. 2. Granting an ex-parte, ad-interim injunction in favour of the Plaintiff and against the Defendants by directing the Defendant No. 1 to immediately archive temporarily from his Facebook Account all the defamatory posts made against the Plaintiff, the details of which along with URLs have been mentioned m Schedule-II with the present Plaint. 3. Grant an ex-parte injunction restraining the Defendant No. 1 from posting/tweeting any defamatory or scandalous or factually incorrect Tweets/Posts on his Twi....
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....o the plaintiff, were highly defamatory of him. 4. The whole issue has arisen on account of the placing of an order with M/s. Tata Motors Ltd. and M/s. JBM Auto Ltd. for supply of low floor buses and the award of the Annual Maintenance Contract to M/s. JBM Auto Ltd. The grievance of the plaintiff is that the defendant No. 1 has openly accused him of corruption in the deal which had impacted the reputation of the plaintiff. 5. Mr. Manish Vashisht, learned senior counsel for the plaintiff, has submitted that the plaintiff, who is a lawyer by profession with impeccable professional reputation, in order to serve the public joined the Aam Aadmi Party ('AAP') and won from the Najafgarh constituency. He was thereafter made a Minister and has been discharging his public duties with great sincerity and honesty. Yet, it did not take much for the defendant No. 1 to tarnish the fair name of the plaintiff without any available material. The learned senior counsel has further submitted that the plaintiff was a law-abiding citizen, with not even a traffic violation, leave alone a criminal case, against him and as had been declared by him while standing for elections. It was further subm....
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....uses were upto 7,50,000 KMs over a tentative period of 12 years. The techno-commercial bid was opened on 1st October, 2020 and the tender for the supply of buses as well as for their life-time maintenance was awarded on 29th January, 2021/1st February, 2021. LoA (Letter of Acceptance) dated 29th January, 2021/1st February, 2021 for CAMC upto 7,50,000 KMs over a tentative period of 12 years for 700 fully built AC CNG Buses, was issued in favour of M/s. JBM Auto Ltd. as its referred proposal was lowest (L-1) out of the qualified proposals. The LoA for the remaining 300 fully built AC CNG buses was issued in favour of Tata Motors Limited. The total cost of the tender for acquiring the said 1000 buses was Rs. 875 crores and for the CAMC, it was Rs. 3412 crores for the entire period of 12 years/7,50,000 KMs. According to the learned senior counsel, the entire transaction was above board and transparent. It was also pointed out that despite the pressing need for buses, the Govt. had not blindly accepted the rates but had duly negotiated keeping the 2019 rates as benchmark. The weighted average was fixed at Rs. 45.50 per KM, after detailed analysis of rates. 9. Yet, the defendant No. 1 i....
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....had not come across any material to impute criminal misconduct or corruption attributable to any public official, much less the plaintiff. This report was widely circulated. However, despite this, the defendant No. 1 made the following defamatory tweets on 10th July, 2021 and 11th July, 2021, which are reproduced herein-below: 17. Thus, the learned counsel submitted that when there was nothing on which any act of financial irregularities or corruption were established or a whisper of scam existed and everything was available in the public domain, the unverified tweets afore-mentioned made by the defendant No. 1 were per se defamatory. It was intended only to bring down the standing of the plaintiff and to compromise his credibility before his constituency members. Even his neighbors were affected by accusations that the plaintiff was a scamster, and his family members and relatives have been traumatized by this vilification. The tweets were suggestive of the plaintiff having prevailed upon the bureaucrats, including the Transport Secretary, to get the deal through and also manipulate the Committee appointed by the Hon'ble Lt. Governor. It was also submitted that various amount....
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....he plaintiff would not be entitled to any relief, if he has suppressed facts and documents; (iv) Injunctive relief is premised on urgency and none was disclosed in the present matter, as the first tweets were of March, 2021, but the suit was filed and relief sought only in August, 2021; (v) The plaintiff had quantified his claim for damages, therefore, no interim injunction can be granted; (vi) There was inherent contradiction in the pleadings and the prayer clause, as what has been stated in the plaint, has not been prayed for as a relief and something not pleaded, has been included in the prayer and therefore, no relief can be granted to the plaintiff and, (vii) Injunction cannot be sought for tweeting in future, as it was violative of Article 19 of the Constitution of India and such a relief can neither be sought nor granted. 22. Taking these points, the learned counsel for the defendant has submitted that admittedly, the plaintiff was a politician and therefore, was a public person. The first tweet had been made on 8th March, 2021, just before the Assembly was convened, when no Minutes of the meetings of the DTC in connection to the purchase of 1000 buses had been uplo....
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....conference announcing that the Committee had gone through 3000 pages of documentation and had found no corruption. Both these statements cannot stand together, for if the report was available with the Media, there was nothing under hand if the defendant No. 1 had come across it. However, the Committee had itself clarified that it was only focusing on the process qua the CAMC and not the procurement of the buses and therefore, to claim that there was no adverse finding against the Government by the Committee was incorrect. The defendant No. 1 had only stated as much in his tweets which was the truth. 26. Moreover, the question that the defendant No. 1 had raised, including in the Assembly, was as to how the weighted value of Rs. 45.5 per KM had been arrived at. Learned counsel submitted that there was a method of arriving at a weighted value which was given under the GFR, but that was not followed. The Committee had faulted the procedure adopted by the DTC, as the weighted value was usually low in the initial years, increasing towards the end of the life of the bus, whereas, by having a flat rate of Rs. 45.5 per KM for the entire 12 years period, the difference in payment annually ....
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....hat this was not a commercial suit and therefore, the index as filed qua admission and denial may be ignored. The written statement was filed within time and an irregularity in verification was curable. Hence, the application I.A. 12535/2021 seeking permission to amend the written statement along with the affidavit be allowed. 32. Since the plaintiff filed the statement of the witness recorded before the learned Metropolitan Magistrate in connection with the filing of the Committee Report with the Chief Secretary on 5th October, 2021, the learned counsel submitted that the original report was already with the Government much prior to the filing of the suit and it was next to impossible that the plaintiff was unaware of its contents. 33. Learned counsel for the defendant No. 1 submitted that in the light of all these factors, no interim injunction can be granted and the application I.A. 10839/2021 be dismissed. 34. In rejoinder, the learned senior counsel for the plaintiff submitted that all tweets had been included in the Schedules and so it was incorrect to suggest that these have not been challenged. Relying on Zenit Mataplast Pvt. Ltd. vs. State of Maharashtra & Ors. (2009) 1....
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....Cognate & Ors, 2021 SCC OnLine Del 3244; and Lakshmi Murdeshwar Puri vs. Saket Gokhale 2021 SCC Online Del 3675. 36. Learned counsel for the defendant No.1 has relied on Kartar Singh v. State of Punjab, 1956 SCR 476; R Rajagopal & Another v. State of TN & others (1994) 6 SCC 632; Mahila Ramkali Devi & Others v. Nandram through LR's & Others (2015) 13 SCC 132; Sardar Charanjit Singh vs. Arun Purie & Others, 1982 SCC OnLine Del 301; M/s Seemax Construction (P) Ltd. vs. State Bank of India & Another, 1991 SCC OnLine Del 668; Billimoria Jehan Bux Tehmuras & Others v. Indian Institute of Architects & Another, 2004 SCC Online Bom 873; Khushwant Singh & Another vs. Maneka Gandhi, 2001 SCC OnLine Del 1030; Indu Jain vs. Forbes Incorporated, 2007 SCC Online Del 1424; Sanj Daily Lokopchar & Others vs. Gokulchand Govindlal Sananda, 2014 SCC OnLineBom1492; Union of India v. Shanti Gurung, 2014 SCC OnLine Del 989; G.K. Mani vs. New Generation Media Corporation Pvt. Ltd., 2019 SCC Online Mad 8332; K.T. Balaji v. Hastun Agro Product Ltd. & others, 2019 SCC Online Mad 30443; Aditya Raj Kaul & Others v. Naeem Akhter CRMC No. 58 /2019 of J&K High Court; and Lakshmi Murdeshwar Puri v. Saket Gokhale ....
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....f Coordinate Benches of this Court, including in Sudesh Garg Vs. Dipender Kumar, 2011 SCC Online Del 5181. In these cases too, specific objections to the filing of the written statement with improper or defective verification were raised and the view taken was that procedural defects and irregularities which are curable should not be allowed to defeat substantive rights or to cause injustice. Defects with regard to signature, verification or presentation, may be permitted to be cured. When the attention of the court is drawn to a defect in verification of the written statement, the defendant should be given an opportunity to cure the same. There is no requirement for an application under Order VI Rule 17 CPC. The opportunity is to be given irrespective of such an application. I.A. 12535/2021 is therefore, quite unnecessary. 41. The learned senior counsel for the plaintiff has pointed out to errors, even in this "amended" verification. Be that as it may, the application is disposed of by granting a final opportunity to the defendant No. 1 to file the correct verification. The written statement having been filed with a curable defect, there is no occasion to reject it, as all that i....
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....ny such posting or tweeting by the defendant No. 1 till the adjudication of the suit. This, the learned counsel for the defendant No. 1 has submitted, is a relief that cannot be granted, as it seeks to muzzle the defendant No. 1 and would be violative of his fundamental rights under Article 19 of the Constitution. Reliance has been placed by him on the judgments of this Court in Sardar Charanjit Singh (supra), Khushwant Singh (supra), as also the judgment of the Supreme Court in R Rajagopal & Another v. State of TN & others, (1994) 6 SCC 632. 44. The judgment of the Supreme Court in R. Rajagopal (supra) lays down the broad principles while considering defamation on publication vis.-a-vis. the freedom of speech and expression guaranteed under Article 19(1)(a). These may be reproduced below for the ready reference: "26. We may now summarise the broad principles flowing from the above discussion: (1) The right to privacy is implicit in the right to life and liberty guaranteed to the citizens of this country by Article 21. It is a "right to be let alone". A citizen has a right to safeguard the privacy of his own, his family, marriage, procreation, motherhood, child-bearing and edu....
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....r contempt of court and Parliament and legislatures protected as their privileges are by Articles 105 and 104 respectively of the Constitution of India, represent exceptions to this rule. (4) So far as the Government, local authority and other organs and institutions exercising governmental power are concerned, they cannot maintain a suit for damages for defaming them. (5) Rules 3 and 4 do not, however, mean that Official Secrets Act, 1923, or any similar enactment or provision having the force of law does not bind the press or media. (6) There is no law empowering the State or its officials to prohibit, or to impose a prior restraint upon the press/media." 45. Though the said case was primarily in respect of the right to privacy and the freedom of speech and expression, the court held that no such prior restraint or prohibition of publication can be imposed on a proposed publication. The remedy for the person, who fears that he would be defamed would arise only after the publication and would be governed by the principles as enunciated by the Supreme Court. On a probability that a publication could defame a person, there is no right to seek a prior restraint. 46. The Divis....
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.... in the Assembly, to answer the very same questions. 50. It would also amount to a restraint on the defendant No. 1 from raising issues of public importance, which would impact the public and about which the public has a right to know and be informed. It is the elected representatives of the people who are expected to raise the concerns of the public in appropriate fora. Today, it is through the social-media platforms i.e., including Facebook and Twitter amongst others, that information and opinions are transmitted. Only if blatant lies and falsehoods, detrimental to public order and morality or adversely affecting the security of the country or national interests are being disseminated through these social-media platforms, can there be a restraint imposed as being reasonable restrictions under Article 19(2) of the Constitution. Else, none should be prevented from expressing their opinions including suspicions or doubts on Government's transaction of business. In the process public figures such as Ministers like the plaintiff, may be lampooned. But they must bear it with fortitude and allow their actions to speak louder than words. The prayers (3), (4) and (5), therefore, cann....
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....er words, according to defendant No. 1, the suspicions raised by him were not unfounded, even in March, 2021. 54. While assessing whether the tweets contain misrepresentation of the facts causing damage to the reputation of the plaintiff, one factor has to be also kept in mind namely, that the defendant No. 1 claims that there is material in the public domain relating to the tendering for the purchase of the buses as also the AMCs from previous years, which were clouded and which were not taken through and that therefore, the decisions taken by the Government in 2020-21 had to be closely monitored. It was on his public demand that the Minutes of the current tendering process were uploaded. The Committee Report was also in the public domain. Thus, it is clear that the defendant No. 1 seeks to justify his tweets on the basis of public records. 55 (i). The initial tweet of 8th March 2021, was because despite lapse of time, no effort had been made by the plaintiff/department/DTC to upload the Minutes of the Meetings, which would have happened in the usual course. The tweet of 8th March 2021, refers specifically to the Minutes of the Meetings dated 22nd December, 2020 to 19th February....
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....021 is only a tweet of photographs of protest in front of the house of the Transport Minister, namely, the plaintiff. (xi) The tweet of 10th July, 2021 comments on the findings of the Three-Member Committee claiming that the Report established open loot by the Transport Minister in the AMC contract for the new DTC buses and that the entire deal was meant to siphon off Rs. 3,500/- crores from the tax-payers' fund. This, the learned counsel for the defendant No. 1 contended was based on the report itself which asked the Government to cancel the CAMC and being truthful, cannot amount to defamation. (xii) The tweet of 11th July, 2021 similarly, is a comment on the findings of the Committee constituted by the Lieutenant Governor and revelation of a conspiracy. (xiii) The tweet of 27th July, 2021 informs the public that the defendant No. 1 intended to bring a privilege motion against the Transport Minister. (xiv) Then the tweet of 19th August, 2021, refers to the MHA having directed the CBI to probe the corruption in the AMC contract and a demand for the removal of the plaintiff to ensure fair investigation. There is no dispute that a preliminary inquiry has in fact been directed....
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....nabove, 'public figures' are subjected to closer scrutiny and unless the same tantamounts to harassment and invasion of private lives of the family of the public personality, interest even in his personal activities, cannot be barred and negative comments banned because they have an impact on his standing in the public eye. Even if these tweets were suggestive of corruption, in the backdrop of the findings of the Committee and initiation of the CBI inquiry, even on a prima facie reading, these cannot be held to be defamatory. Moreover, the defendant No. 1 has raised the plea of justification for these comments and has also referred to various documents during the course of arguments to justify the tweets. The defendant No. 1 has to be granted an opportunity to establish his plea of justification at the time of trial. 58. This Court, in the case of Fiitjee Limited Versus Vidya Mandir Classes Ltd. and Others 2022 SCC OnLine Del 484, held as under: "19. There is no gainsaying that in general, the Bonnard Rule has been followed by the courts in determining whether interlocutory injunctions should be granted against publication in cases of defamation including in the case cit....