MADURAI: Citing procedural violations, the Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court on Thursday quashed a defamation case against NTK chief Seeman pending before the judicial magistrate court in Tiruchy.
Justice L Victoria Gowri passed the order on a revision petition filed by Seeman challenging the order of the magistrate taking cognisance of the complaint filed by IPS officer V Varun Kumar.
The judge observed that the police officer had used the justice delivery system for his personal vendetta. She further criticised the course adopted by the magistrate.
Once a private complaint is filed, the magistrate should examine the complainant and the witnesses on oath. The next procedure to be adopted should be issuing notice along with the complaint and annexures, sworn statement of witnesses, and calling upon the proposed accused for a pre-cognisance hearing.
However, in the above complaint, the magistrate had reversed this sequence by taking cognisance issuing summons immediately after sworn statements and thereafter receiving the written objections and offering an opportunity of hearing to the proposed accused, she pointed out.
She also explained the difference between an opportunity of hearing and a summoning order commencing trial-stage participation. The former is a procedural safeguard before the coercive machinery of criminal law is set in motion, while the latter is a formal and authoritative command to face the process of trial, she added. Hence, the above order deserves to be set aside, she held. However, the complainant can reinstitute the case in the correct statutory sequence.
The judge further said, “When the complainant is a serving officer, and the accused a prominent opposition figure, the judiciary’s threshold scrutiny must be exacting to ensure that criminal law is not converted into an instrumentality for dampening political criticism or for project-style management of official reputation, to protect the officer’s public image. Democracy is sustained only when politicians can speak freely and bureaucrats can work fearlessly, within constitutional discipline.”