Defamation plea against Jindal:HC sets aside lower court order

The Delhi High Court has set aside a trial court order asking city police to further probe into the defamation complaint of Zee News Editor Sudhir Chaudhary against Congress MP Naveen Jindal and 16 others, saying the magistrate shall not conduct "any fishing or roving inquiry".
"This court is of the view that the Metropolitan Magistrate has exceeded its jurisdiction in directing such a full-fledged investigation at the post-cognizance stage and therefore, the impugned order deserves to be set aside," Justice Kailash Gambhir said.
A magisterial court had on January 15 asked Delhi police to investigate the defamation complaint against Jindal and 16 other officials of his firm Jindal Steel Power Ltd (JSPL) who were named in the complaint filed by Chaudhary.

Allowing the plea of JSPL officials, Justice Gambhir, in his 118-page judgement, said "the order passed by the Magistrate is grossly illegal, perverse, and if allowed to stand, the same will result in causing mis-carriage of justice and serious prejudice to the rights of the petitioners".
"In the absence of any ... Material on record, the Magistrate shall not conduct any fishing or roving inquiry and any such inquiry or an investigation involving the police will evade the very scope of Section 202 CrPC," he said.
The high court also rapped the Editor for being "casual" in his approach in filing the complaint without making sppecific allegations against 17 persons.

"The complainant (Editor) cannot be so casual in approach and implead all the Directors of a company without laying any basic foundation of facts or attributing and assigning any specific role either in the complaint or in his evidence which could prima-facie show their role in alleged defamation of the complainant," it said.
Earlier, Chaudhary had filed the complaint alleging Jindal and JSPL officials had made "deliberately false" statements and registered a "false case" against him in the alleged Rs 100-crore extortion bid case and defamed him by levelling allegations against him at a press conference here.