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Defamation law

SC says the time has come to decriminalise defamation law

Justice M M Sundresh, heading a bench with Justice Satish Chandra Sharma, made the remark while hearing a plea filed by the news portal The Wire against the summons issued by a magistrate on a complaint by Jawaharlal Nehru University professor Amita Singh over a 2016 article published by the news portal.

Decriminalising defamation

The fact is that the law of criminal libel has for the most part been a cause of harassment, mostly of members of the Fourth Estate, who are routinely and often tendentiously arraigned in remote locations on charges of such defamation.