Tanvi Sinha
A criminal charge of defamation has been levelled against five electronic media channels namely, Republic Bharat, Zee News, Aaj Tak, India TV and TV-9 in the Chandigarh District Court and is up for hearing in the court on Tuesday, 19 January 2021.
This has been done with regards to media channels allegedly calling the persons involved in the farmer’s agitation as anti-nationalist and Khalistani.
The plea has been filed by one Ravinder Singh Bassi, represented by Adv. Manjit Singh.
It claims that these allegations of the media have personally affected the complainant as he had persons calling him a terrorist or a Khalistani and citing the news channels as the reason for their behaviour.
The complainant talks about news channels’ behaviour deteriorating in the past 40 days and wrong news being spread by them towards the Kisan Unions.
The complainant says this has lowered the reputation of farmers of the nation and charged the media houses under Section 499 and 500 of the Indian Penal Code.
For it to be proved defamation, the complainant will have to prove the statement be made and referring to the complainant, the statement being defamatory to his reputation, the intention of the wrong doer being to defame the person, and the statement being false, published and making the third party(s) believe it is true.
The media has been scrutinised by the courts before for spreading fake news, with the Bombay HC speaking about the egged on propaganda spread by the media regarding the Tablighi Jamat case earlier during the COVID-19 lockdown.
The Supreme Court had in a separate case regarding the farmers protests asked the centre to produce proof of Khalistani groups infiltrating the farmers protests. The allegation was formally made to the SC from the centre by AG Venugopal.
It was also alleged that the “Sikhs For Justice” US-based Khalistani group was funding the protests.