The Nagpur bench of the Bombay High Court has dismissed a defamation case filed against a leading media house, asserting that media has the right to report on registration of first information reports (FIRs) and the publisher is not expected to ascertain the truthfulness of an FIR before publishing news.
Justice Vinay Joshi of the high court on June 20 dismissed the criminal complaint of defamation while hearing a petition filed by Chairman of Lokmat Media Pvt Ltd Vijay Darda and its Editor-in-Chief Rajendra Darda, who sought quashing of the criminal proceedings initiated against them by a magistrate court on a defamation complaint filed by a man for a news item published about him in daily 'Lokmat' on May 20, 2016.
The news was related to the registration of an offence against the complainant and his family members, which the complainant alleged was "false and defamatory as the publishers had not verified facts before publishing the news".
