The Bombay High Court recently quashed the process issued against the Directors of TV9 News Channel named in a defamation case filed by a Mumbai Police Officer over a video aired on their channel, wherein the said officer was allegedly assaulted by another man and a woman in a public place.

Single-judge Justice Ranjitsinha Bhonsale noted the case of the complainant - Rajesh Sawane that while he was on patrolling duty on August 24, 2013, he saw his brother-in-law standing near a bus stop and when the officer questioned him, the latter was annoyed and initially started speaking to him in a loud noise and then subsequently assaulted him.

The video of this incident was aired on TV9 on December 14 and December 15, 2013 under the title "Mumbai Khakiwalachi Dhuli" (Assault Of Mumbai Policeman). However, Sawane alleged that the channel had run the news item with a bias and with a motivated intention only to defame him as the channel did not try to find out why the incident took place and what was the "truth" behind this entire incident.

Accordingly, Sawane lodged a complaint before the Magistrate and then got his statements verified. However, he subsequently filed an application to amend his complaint only to add the names of TV9 Managing Directors - Ravi Velicheti and Narsimha Mangipudi and the Magistrate then issued a process against the two on April 11, 2017.

While dealing with their petitions challenging the order issuing process, Justice Bhonsale in his September 11 order noted that after amending his complaint to the extent of adding names of the two Directors, the Magistrate Court did not once again verify the statement of the complainant.

"I find that, before issuing the process against the Petitioners there was no verification statement recorded. Pertinent to note that, order of issuing process is after the amendment and includes the newly added accused. The object and purpose of recording a verification statement of the Complainant is to ascertain and arrive at the true and correct facts of the case. The recording of the statement of a Complainant under Section 200 of the CrPC (now 223 of BNSS) is to bring out the truth. It is not an empty formality. In the present case, after allowing the amendment it was necessary for the Court to record a verification statement and ascertain the prima facie facts/truth," the judge observed.

Since no amendment of any sort was carried out in the complaint apart from adding the Petitioners as Accused Nos. 1 and 2, one fails to understand how without any averment whatsoever and merely because Petitioners were Managing Directors of the company, even a prima facie case was made out against the Petitioners, the judge opined.

With these observations, the bench quashed the order issuing process and ordered the Magistrate Court to proceed in accordance with law, from the stage of recording of statement and verifying the same.

Appearance:

Advocates Bhavesh Parmar, Rajesh Sahani, Priya Vaity and Devmani Shukla appeared for the Petitioner.

Additional Public Prosecutor Sangita Phad represented the State.

Advocate Vishal Deshmukh represented the Complainant.

Case Title: Ravi Prakash Velicheti vs State of Maharashtra (Criminal Writ Petition 694 of 2018)

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