'Factually Correct Reporting Not Defamation': Delhi High Court Quashes Case Against Journalist Nilanjana Bhowmick

The Delhi High Court has recently quashed a defamation case filed against journalist Nilanjana Bhowmick over an article published in 2010 in the Times Magazine, observing that factually correct reporting cannot be termed as defamatory.

“The manner in which a Journalist or an Article Writer presents the facts, is his skill of writing, but when the reported matter is factually correct, then it cannot be termed as an act of defamation by the Complainant,” Justice Neena Bansal Krishna observed.

Ravi Nair, running an organization South Asia Human Rights Documentation Centre (SAHRDC), filed the complaint in November 2014.

He was aggrieved by the journalist's article titled “Accountability of India's Nonprofits under Scrutiny,” which was published on December 14, 2020. The Article discussed about the alleged transgressions in the working of the NGOs and the “unscrupulousness” in India's sprawling non-profit sector.

It was Nair's case that the journalist allegedly defamed him implying in the article that he and his organization were involved in money laundering. Even though he sent an email to the Editor in 2010, the complaint was filed in 2014 after he came to know from his former colleague that the article continued to remain accessible online without restriction.

The complaint was filed against Bhowmick (then Bureau Chief of Times Magazine), Editor, blogger and editor of website ngopost.org wherein the article in question was later republished.

In October 2018, the trial court summoned Bhowmick in the criminal defamation case while proceedings were closed qua others. The journalist had filed the petition in 2021 challenging the complaint as well as the summoning order.

Granting relief to Bhowmick, Justice Krishna said that the reporting was factually correct and it did not state that Nair was indicted in the investigations initiated against his NGO.

“To say that by innuendoes and insinuations, there were some acts being attributed to the Complainant is an oversensitive, attitude of the Complainant, and would not be sufficient to constitute defamation,” the Court said.

It added that every individual is entitled to cherish and vociferously cherish and protect his reputation, but it is not so fragile that “it would get sullied by such reporting.”

The Court said that Nair was only trying to build a case of defamation by asserting that there were certain insinuations and innuendos in the Article, but that in itself, cannot be held to be sufficient to make it a case of defamation.

“In the light of the aforesaid discussions, it cannot be said that the two lines written against the NGO of the Complainant or for the complainant were per se defamatory when in fact it only stated a fact which may be non-palatable to the Complainant,” the judge said.

Further, it was observed that the complaint to claim defamation qua the article that got first published in 2010 was patently barred by limitation, as the same was filed in 2014.

“In any case, it is pertinent to note that the Complainant was admittedly aware of the original Article as early as December 2010, yet chose to remain silent for nearly four years, when the Complaint was filed on 11.11.2014. It is therefore, held that this Complaint was patently barred by limitation,” the Court said.

It held: ” Accordingly, it is held that no offence of defamation is disclosed against the Petitioner, Nilanjana Bhowmick. Also the Complaint is barred by limitation. Nilanjana Bhowmick is hereby discharged and the proceedings in Criminal Complaint No. 33305/2016 against the Petitioner, is quashed.”

Title: MS. NILANJANA BHOWMICK v. RAVI NAIR

Citation: 2025 LiveLaw (Del) 1625

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