New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Tuesday dismissed a petition filed by a retired IPS officer. The petition challenged the order of the Punjab and Haryana High Court in which the summons issued to him in a defamation case filed by the officer against Indian National Lok Dal chief Abhay Singh Chautala in 2008 was quashed.
A bench of Justices M M Sundaresh and Satish Chandra Sharma said that they are not in favour of interfering with the High Court order. The top court was hearing a petition filed by retired IPS officer Param Veer Rathi. In this petition, he had challenged the High Court order of December 19, 2023, in which the summons issued to Chautala was quashed.
The retired IPS officer had filed a complaint against Chautala and some others in August 2008. He had alleged that Chautala had made defamatory statements against the officer, which were published in various newspapers, and which had caused irreparable damage to his reputation.
A court in Gurugram had issued summons to Chautala in 2010, which Chautala had challenged in the Additional District and Sessions Court, but the court had upheld the order. This order was subsequently challenged in the High Court.
The High Court, while setting aside the summons order, said that the prima facie evidence presented by Rathi did not establish that Chautala had made the alleged defamatory statements.
The High Court had said, “There is not a single word in the complaint that Chautala had any past ill will against the complainant. The complainant has not mentioned any ill-intention, enmity, malice, or intention to defame him by Chautala either in the complaint or in the primary evidence in his testimony.’’
‘‘In view of the above, this is a proper case for the court to prevent abuse of process of law as the allegations made in the complaint and the primary evidence do not show that the public statements allegedly made by Chautala were made with any ill-intention against the complainant.’’