Retweeting not to Extenuate Defamation

Technology has, without doubt, brought immeasurable relief to humanity but at the same time it has also brought along the store of difficulties and embarrassment if that is not used judiciously. Thanks to technology one can get information from one end of the globe to the other in a few seconds, but it can also cause incalculable damage if used maliciously. Vicious propaganda can be made viral by re-tweeting and sharing of the message emanating from an unscrupulous person.

In a recent case of defamation filed by the Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley against the present Chief Minister of Delhi and others, the Delhi High Court and the Supreme Court of India have refused to differentiate between the Tweet and Retweet. However, the both Constitutional Courts have not spoken a word about the merit of the case, which has been left entirely to the Trial Court to decide. The factual matrix of the case is that Mr Kejriwal had accused that the Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley of indulging into corruption as the President of the Delhi and District Cricket Association (DDCA), a post that he held from 2010 to 2013. Mr Arun Jaitley in his complaint case alleged that the accused persons defamed him by saying that the ‘CBI raided the office of the Chief Minister at the instance of Mr Jaitley to locate files related to corruption in DDCA. The name of the Finance Minister Arun Jaitley figured in those files as he was in dock and I was about to order a commission of enquiry.’

‘Why Jaitley Ji so scared of DDCA probe? What is his role in the DDCA Scam’, says another Tweet of Kejriwal.  He made many tweets like, ‘Arun Jaitley had shielded the Delhi and District Cricket Association (DDCA) for over 15 years. There’s corruption worth several hundred crores that has taken place under the very nose of the Finance Minister’. The allegations against Mr Jaitley are very serious. He should either resign or be removed to enable independent enquiry.’ ‘if Jaitley was let off without investigation, on the same basis 2G accused should also be let off. Can Jaitley’s denial in press be taken as gospel truth? These are very serious allegations against him. Why is he running away from investigation?’ Jaitley is the Suresh Kalmadi of BJP’ or ‘Bhakton ka naya naara apna Arun Kamaoo nikla, Kalmadi ka tau nikla”. etc.

 These were retweeted by Raghav Bahl, an Aam Aadmi Party leader. The Trial Court issued summons to him under section 499 of the Indian Penal Code for defamation. Mr Bahl approached the Delhi High Court for quashing the summoning by the Trial Court, which was dismissed. He then approached the Supreme Court of India on the ground that he merely retweeted, which cannot be the defamation. The Supreme Court also dismissed the petition by saying that a person, who retweets cannot a be oblivious to the content of the tweets. 

Mr Arun Jaitley in his complaint said that accused persons individually and collectively undertook a false, malicious and defamatory campaign against him and his family members from an unrelated act of a search conducted during an investigation by Central Bureau of Investigation in the Secretariat of the Govt. of NCT of Delhi. The plea that was taken by Mr Raghav Bahl was that all the communications allegedly made by him were in electronic form, solely covered by the Information and Technology Act, 2000 and not by Section 499 of the Indian Penal Code. Moreover, ‘retweet’ did not amount to publication for the purpose of Section 499 IPC and therefore he had been wrongly summoned under Section 34 of the IPC.

 On the other hand, the counsel for Mr. Jaitley argued that ‘retweeting falls within the ambit of Section 499 IPC by virtue of it being a fresh representation and publication of the original defamatory comment by repeating and endorsing it publicly; that striking down of Section 66A of the IT Act does not affect the right of an aggrieved person who has been defamed and can avail the remedy provided under the provisions of Section 499/500 IPC; that the summoning order against the present petitioner is not restricted to ‘retweets’ only as they amounted to the defamatory imputations.

 The High Court ruled that it is well-nigh settled that the inherent powers being extraordinary in character demand great caution which ought to be exercised sparingly to achieve the underlying object of Section 482Cr.P.C. The High Court, therefore, performs a tripartite function whilst invoking inherent powers under Section 482 Cr.P.C., which includes: firstly, giving effect to the orders passed under the Code; secondly, preventing the abuse of the process of the Court and thirdly, securing the ends of justice. The Court cannot embark upon weighing the evidence and arriving at any conclusion to hold, whether or not the allegations made in the complaint shall constitute an offence under Section 499 IPC punishable under Section 500 of IPC. It is a settled legal principle that the complaint has to be read as a whole in order to determine whether the allegations contrived therein are prima facie sufficient to constitute an offence under Section 499 IPC, triable by a Magistrate.

The counsel for Mr Jaitley argued that the fact that Section 66A of the IT Act has been struck down does not affect the right of an aggrieved person who has been defamed and therefore, will continue to have access to the provision of Sections 499/500 IPC. The next argument of Mr Bahl is that the petitioner has only retweeted the contents of the tweet of the other co-accused and mere sharing of a tweet does not amount to Publication. which is an essential ingredient of criminal defamation; that the petitioner cannot be charged under Section 34 of the IPC as he retweeted much after the original tweet of Mr Kejriwal and that too not in furtherance of the original tweet; that unlike linking or adding unrelated content or making changes it does not add any substantive material related to the alleged defamatory material. The counsel reiterated that the retweet is mere sharing of the original tweet which does not amount to publication.

 On the other hand, the counsel for Mr Jaitley said that ‘The Indian Penal Code makes no exception in favour of the second or third publication as compared with the first, and such an exception would obviously be made a means of defeating the principal provision of the law of defamation. In England it is not allowed to a defendant to prove that a statement, similar to the one for which he is indicted, has been previously published by persons who have not been prosecuted; and the repetition of a common rumour, however prevalent is not received as an excuse for its further promulgation.’

 The High Court observed that Twitter is an online global message broadcasting platform wherein people create, discover and distribute content. This content is in the form of an alphanumeric message comprising of maximum 140 characters in length and is known as ‘Tweet’. Anyone with a valid e-mail id can sign-up on this platform and indulge himself/herself into engaging in conversation with others on the platform via the medium of ‘Tweets’. These ‘Tweets’ are visible to anyone who visits the profile of the creator of that ‘Tweet’. Further, a user who wants to see the ‘Tweets’ of a particular person in his ‘Twitter Timeline’, which is a personalised ongoing stream of ‘Tweets’, can follow that particular person. In this way, the ‘Tweets’ of that particular person can be seen without making an effort of opening the profile of the particular person to see his/her ‘Tweets’. Further, the platform offers a feature known as ‘Retweet’, which the platform claims, the user can use for re-posting of a ‘Tweet’ to share that ‘Tweet’ with their followers quickly. A retweet, in essence, brings the contents of the original tweet into the immediate attention of the followers of the user who retweets.

 Therefore, the High Court ruled that retweeting amounts to be sharing. The summoning order of the Trial Court was upheld as there was no infirmity in its order. Whether retweeting would attract the liability under Section 499 IPC is a question which requires being determined in the totality of the circumstances and the same will have to be determined during trial. This emphatic assertion of the Delhi High Court and the Supreme Court has made it abundantly clear that those who make elaborate use of the modern technology must be circumspect to from landing into unnecessary litigation.

‘Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance’

My friend Sudhir Kumar made me available the reprint of a nearly five-decade-old book ‘Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance’, written by an American author Robert M. Pirsig. The title of the book may be weird, but otherwise, it is an absorbing book. It fascinated me for more than one reason. Firstly, the author of this book was an alumnus of the ‘Banaras Hindu University’ (BHU) in the early thirties where I also studied four decades later in seventies. Secondly, it has very deftly handled the intricacies of Buddhism, Hinduism and Greek philosophy. Very few people know the origin of word ‘Zen’ which is derived from Sanskrit word ‘Dhyan’(Meditation), which became ‘Chan’ in China and ‘Zen’ in Japan. One of the bestselling books of the seventies and eighties it has been printed more than forty times.

It essentially contains three books which go side by side. The first part contains the account of a motorcycle trip from Minnesota, mid-western State of the USA bordering Canada in the east to California on the Pacific Coast. The second part deals with the philosophical meditation on the concept of the ‘Quality’ and the third part gives the glimpse of a story of a man who is pursued by the ghost of his former self. Within it, we encounter the allegory of the psychological tension, a lesson in Eastern and Western School of thoughts, a conundrum about the meaning of self, a commentary on the prevailing social and physical land escape of America. Last but not the least some helpful tips on the care and maintenance of the motorcycle.

There are many esoteric questions which have been thrown up in this book like; how do we know what is true and what is not true? What makes us who we are? Can, and should, we work to change our self to fit an idea of what we want to be? Like any other great work, this book frustrates as much as it enchants. It encourages us to question our most basic belief. But there are no easy answers.

The author says that number zero (0), originally a Hindu number was introduced to the West by the Arabs during the Middle Ages which was unknown to the Ancient and Greek Romans. The number zero also shows the absurdity of trying to derive zero from any form of mass-energy as that is nothing but reductio ad absurdum.The author has tried to bring the unification of spiritual feeling and technological thoughts. The division between these two is the root cause of discontent of our age, he says. He offers some heterodox solutions, which may not be appealing to the present generation. Technology has overtaken the meditative thoughts. Nonetheless; the book is gripping and worth reading.

Strong Message to Forum-shoppers and Aberrant Judges

An eminent jurist Benjamin Cardozo has said that ‘the judge is not a knight-errant, roaming at will in pursuit of his own ideal of beauty and goodness.’ Another jurist Felix Frankfurter has said that ‘for the highest exercise of judicial duty is to subordinate once personal pulls and private views to the law of which all are guardians-those impersonal convictions make a society a civilized community and not the victims of personal rule.’

These two quotations are apt in the present circumstances when the judicial discipline was thrown overboard by the Lucknow bench of the Allahabad High Court resulting into the huge erosion in the image of the judiciary. Thanks to the timely and bold intervention of the Supreme Court, the rot that was spreading very fast in the name forum shopping and extracting favourable justice was stemmed otherwise, brokers and blackmailers would have brought further disrepute to the Institution. The controversy arose in the Supreme Court of India when a group of lawyers created an unsavoury effort for impeaching the authority of two judges namely; the Chief Justice of India and Justice A.N khanwilkar. The root of the controversy lies in the medical admission scam or simply MCI scam. In September this year, the CBI arrested a retired judge of the Orissa High Court and five others for allowing a private medical college enrol students despite a ban by the Supreme Court on the same.

According to the CBI investigation, Justice IM Quddusi, a judge with the Orissa High Court between 2004 and 2010, and his alleged accomplice Bhawana Pandey helped the Prasad Education Trust that runs Lucknow-based Prasad Institute of Medical Sciences to enrol students in different courses. The Prasad Institute of Medical Sciences of Lucknow was among 46 colleges barred by the government from admitting students. These colleges were found to have sub-standard facilities and non-fulfilment of the required criteria.Justice Quddusi and Bhawana Pandey allegedly assured the Prasad Education Trust that they would ensure that their matter was settled in the Supreme Court. The CBI said that Quddusi and Pandey roped in a middleman identified as Biswanath Agrawala of Bhubaneswar.

Besides, Justice Quddusi, Bhawana Pandey and Biswanath Agrawala, the CBI also arrested BP Yadav, Palash Yadav (both from Prasad Education Trust) and an alleged hawala operator Ramdev Saraswat.

Agrawala claimed to have contacts with influential people. The CBI seized Rs 1 crore during searches from Agrawala soon after he got the money from Saraswat in Delhi's Chandni Chowk area. The CBI later recovered another Rs 90 lakh from the places owned by him.

The Supreme Court came into the picture after the Prasad Institute challenged the government's decision to debar it from admitting students for medical courses. Some other medical colleges too had filed petitions in the Supreme Court.In August this year, a Supreme Court bench headed by CJI Dipak Misra directed the Centre to review its order to debar medical colleges it found having sub-standard facilities. On August 10, the government heard the arguments of the Prasad Institute. But, it refused to lift the restriction till 2018-19. It also asked the Medical Council of India (MCI) to encash its bank guarantee of Rs 2 crore. The FIR registered by the CBI states that BP Yadav of the Prasad Education Trust contacted Justice Quddusi and Pandey through another person identified as Sudhir Giri of Venkateshswara Medical College of Meerut. The CBI FIR says they ‘entered into a criminal conspiracy for getting the matter settled.’

The Prasad Institute challenged the government order in the SC afresh. However, a few days later, on the advice of Justice Quddusi, the petitioner withdrew the plea from the Supreme Court and moved the Allahabad High Court. The Allahabad High Court provided temporary relief to the petitioner staying the debarment order. It also stayed encashment of bank guarantee by the MCI. The medical college regulator, in turn, challenged the Allahabad High Court order in the Supreme Court. Now, the Prasad Institute also filed a writ petition in the Supreme Court. The CBI says that it is at this point of the legal battle, Quddusi and Pandey roped in Agrawala, who was engaged to influence the judges of the Supreme Court. Most of the accused of the case are out on the bail. 

Meanwhile, the Campaign for Judicial Accountability and Reforms filed a petition in the Supreme Court seeking setting up of an independent probe by a SIT headed by a retired chief justice of India. The petitioner, Kamini Jaiswal, contended that such a probe is urgently needed as it involved charges of corruption in the highest judicial bodies - the High Court and the Supreme Court. The petition was first put up on 8^th of November before the bench of Justice J Chelameswar, who posted the matter for hearing on 11^th November but the petitioner's counsel- Dushyant Dave and Prashant Bhushan- again mentioned the matter on 9^th November once again before the bench of Justice Chelameswar, who agreed to hear the matter.Admitting the petition, Justice Chelameswar passed an order to set up a constitution bench of five senior-most judges of the Supreme Court for hearing the petition seeking a probe by a SIT. The bench also issued notices to the Centre and Medical Council of India.

The petitioner contended that CJI Dipak Misra should not be on the constitution bench as he was on the bench that dispensed with the case relating to Prasad Education Trust in the past. Justice Chelameswar, however, left the matter to be decided by the constitution bench itself.

While Justice Chelameswar was about to pass the order, another draft order was delivered to him. The draft order was apparently issued by CJI Dipak Misra, who listed the same matter in another court.

Justice Chelameswar interpreted the draft order differently. Citing Article 145(3), he observed that the matter relating to the SIT probe can be heard by a constitution bench without the CJI passing a specific order. As per existing practice and law, setting up a constitution bench is the administrative function of the CJI.

The matter took another turn when the CJI set up a seven-judge bench to hear the order passed by Justice Chelameswar bench in the matter of SIT probe. Two of the judges, however, recused themselves from the bench. The five-judge bench annulled the order passed by Justice Chelameswar.

Later the matter was heard by the bench of the Chief Justice and it scathingly attacked the conduct of the judges of the Allahabad High Court by saying that, obviously, the Division Bench of Allahabad High Court had abandoned the concept of judicial propriety by quashing the ban order of the Central Government and the Medical Council of India. More so, when at the time of the withdrawal of the Petition, the Supreme Court had very clearly directed that ‘the High Court, while entertaining the Writ Petition shall not pass any interim order pertaining to the academic year 2017-2018’

The Supreme Court said that, ‘it is as the cloudless sky that the judgement of the High Court shows unnecessary and uncalled-for hurry, unjustified haste and unreasonable sense of promptitude being oblivious of the fact that the stand of the Medical Council of India and the Central Government could not be given indecent burial when they were the parties on record. Such a procedure cannot be countenanced in law.’ The Supreme Court debarred the Institution from continuing the Course and said that although students cannot be fully compensated, yet it ordered the Institution to refund their fees besides paying Rs ten lakh to each. The Court also imposed the cost of Rs 25 lakh on the Institute.

The drama that was played by the Commission for Judicial Accountability and Reforms(CJAR) is saddening and cover it with bad light. Firstly, it made the egregious mistake of filing two identical petitions in the Supreme Court.  One in the name of its member Kamini Jaiswal and other in the name of the CJAR itself. Secondly. It pressed the immediate hearing of the case, which should not have Chief Justice Dipak Misra on the bench. It amounted to eroding the authority of the Chief Justice, who is the master of the roster and has got the sole right to constitute the Bench of the Supreme Court. Another bench consisting of Justice R. K. Agrawal, Arun Mishra and A. M. Khanwilkar heard the petition of Kaman Jaiswal and dismissed with scathing comments on the conduct of the concerned advocates. The second petition was also dismissed but this time a hefty cost of Rs 25 lakh was imposed on the CJAR for its misadventure of forum hunting and tarnishing the majesty of the judiciary.

There is no doubt, that those who are in the Judiciary particularly in the higher judiciary, which includes Bar and Bench both must conduct themselves in the manner, which could serve as the role model for others and instil the unshakable faith in the institution of justice.

Ban on Surrogacy Bazar

 Parmanand Pandey

Filmmaker Karan Johar has made us all aware how ecstatic he is at having become the father of twins born to a surrogate mother. As a single father, he would have been well aware that there is a Surrogacy Regulation Bill pending in parliament which, once passed, will make his actions illegal and even fetch him a 10-year jail term. Johar, and other celebrities like Aamir Khan and Shah Rukh Khan who also have children born through surrogacy, are fortunate since the proposed bill, due to be passed shortly, would have branded them as criminals. In fact, the bill is not just draconian, it flies in the face of Article 14 and 21 of the constitution which guarantees “equality before the law and equal protection of laws to all” and “protection of life and personal liberty of all persons”.

The Surrogacy Regulation Bill proposes a blanket ban on commercial surrogacy and restricts ethical and altruistic surrogacy to legally wedded infertile Indian couples who have been married for at least five years. The husband must be between 26 and 55 years and the wife, between 23 and 50 years. Overseas Indians, foreigners, unmarried couples, single parents, live-in partners, gay and lesbian couples are barred from commissioning the services of a surrogate mother. Only a married blood relative, who must have herself borne a child and is not an NRI or a foreigner, can be a surrogate mother, but only once in a lifetime. Indian couples with biological or adopted children are prohibited from having children through surrogacy. Commercial surrogacy will result in a jail term of at least ten years and a fine of up to Rs 10 lakh.

EXPLOITED AND MISUSED

In India, surrogacy has certainly been exploited and misused but the proposed Bill is like throwing out the baby with the bathwater, literally. Surrogacy has thrown up many contentious questions of law and ethics. There are innumerable examples when children have been born through niyog, a type of surrogacy. However, with the development of medical science, surrogacy has assumed the form of a bazaar leading to the exploitation of poor, illiterate women, mostly from rural backgrounds. Women are often persuaded to participate by their spouses or middlemen to earn easy money but they have no rights when it comes to a decision regarding their own bodies.

Ideally, the state cannot interfere in the prerogative of any person to have children, naturally or through surrogacy.

Surrogacy is of two types: altruistic and commercial. A woman who bears a child for her infertile sister or a mother who gives birth to her infertile daughter’s child is altruistic but when a woman allows her womb-on-rent, it becomes commercial surrogacy. India had become the hub of “surrogacy tourism” for nearly two decades and to curb it, the cabinet approved the Surrogacy Regulation Bill, 2016, yet to be enacted into law by parliament. The bill is still being examined by a parliamentary standing committee and is likely to be finalised soon. Had this bill become an act, Karan Johar and others of his ilk like Tusshar Kapoor, Shah Rukh Khan and Aamir Khan would have been in trouble.

The Supreme Court has also been flooded with a bunch of petitions seeking direction to make representations before the parliamentary committee. They want inclusion of specific provisions and so far, the Court has ruled in favour of only one of the petitions. What could inspire legal challenges is the fact that the proposed law is very stringent and flies into the face of the two articles mentioned in the constitution earlier.

STATE INTERFERENCE

Therefore, restricting conditional surrogacy to married Indian couples and disqualifying others on the basis of marital status, sexual orientation and age do not qualify the test of equality. The right to life includes the right to reproductive autonomy like those of procreation and parenthood. Hence, ideally, the state cannot interfere in the prerogative of any person to have children, naturally or through surrogacy. Infertility cannot be a prudent condition to undertake surrogacy an Alternative Reproductive Technology. Barring of foreigners to prevent the misuse of surrogacy could prove to be counterproductive because the yardstick governing domestic altruistic surrogacy could lead to corruption and exploitation, pushing surrogacy into unethical hands and leading to an underground abusive trade in surrogacy.

What happens to the family of the surrogate mother if she loses her life in the process of childbirth?

Once altruistic surrogacy is legalised, there is no proof that it will not lead to a commercial market. If it is legalised, then a woman will bear a child as laid out in the contract and the black market will certainly develop. Another question which is often asked is whether altruistic surrogacy is more humane or is it just like trafficking. The distinction between altruistic and commercial surrogacy is, in fact, very thin because in both cases, a woman is reduced to a “container or vessel”. Instead of having an existential and spiritual experience, the woman’s pregnancy is made to serve others.

There are many more issues which have not been addressed in the proposed bill such as what would be the rights of the child if the adoptive parents reject it midway or after birth or if the surrogate mother faces health issues during and after pregnancy. What happens to the family of the surrogate mother if she loses her life in the process of childbirth? Why should those who have married late in life wait for five years till they can opt for surrogacy? What about single women who don’t want to marry but want to be mothers nevertheless. Surrogacy agreements are made under the Indian Contract Act of 1872 and other applicable laws, but in practice, they are often violated. The proposed Bill, once enacted, is certain to open a Pandora’s Box.