The Punjab and Haryana High Court quashes the summons issued to INLD leader Abhay Chautala, which was originally ordered by a Gurugram court.

This decision comes in response to a complaint filed by former IPS officer Param Vir Rathee.

Case Brief:

In August 2008, Rathee lodged a complaint against Chautala and others, alleging that they made defamatory statements against the officer. These statements were reportedly published in multiple newspapers, causing substantial harm to Rathee's reputation and irreparable damage.

Following Rathee's complaint, a Gurugram court summoned Chautala in 2010. Chautala contested this order before the additional district and sessions court, which upheld the summons. Subsequently, this decision was challenged in the high court.

The HC bench of justice Anoop Chitkara quashed the summoning order.  The observation highlighted that in Rathee's initial evidence, it wasn't proven that Chautala, who supposedly made defamatory remarks, was informed about subsequent clarifications published in newspapers following an article upon which those alleged defamatory statements were based.

“The complaint does not utter a single word of any prior ill-will of the petitioner against the complainant. The complainant did not plead in the complaint or establish in his testimony in the preliminary evidence any oblique motive, malice, ill-will, mala fide intention of the petitioner, or intention to defame him.

Given the above, it is a fit case for this court to prevent the abuse of the process of law because the allegations made in the complaint and the preliminary evidence do not point out that the public statements allegedly made by the petitioner were made with any malicious intent against the complainant,” the court said dismissing the summoning order.