Defamation law abused: Kejriwal to Apex Court

There is a need to decriminalise penal provision for defamation and the “colonial law”, which has been inevitably abused, needs to be re-examined rigorously, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal told the Supreme Court on Wednesday.

Toeing identical line adopted by BJP’s Subramanian Swamy and Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi who have also challenged constitutional validity of sections 499 and 500 of the IPC, the Aam Aadmi Party leader told a bench comprising justices Dipak Misra and Prafulla C Pant that there are several grounds to scrap them as these provisions violated Articles 14, 19(1)(a)(g) and 21 of the Constitution. 

Senior advocate Rajiv Dhawan submitted that the provisions were liable to be struck down on the basis that “the pathology of their litigational use suggests inevitable abuse”. Swamy and Gandhi have been charged with criminal defamation under sections 499 and 500 of the IPC for their political speeches in Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra respectively.