The Delhi High Court has held that merely filing complaints, even if they are later found to be false, does not by itself constitute the offence of defamation.

Justice Neena Bansal Krishna observed that to attract defamation, it must be established that the imputations were made with the intention to harm a person’s reputation, or with the knowledge or reasonable belief that such imputations would cause reputational damage.

The Court clarified that filing complaints before competent authorities in the ordinary course of law, even if ultimately found to be untrue, would not automatically amount to defamation.

Justice Krishna dismissed a petition filed by a company director challenging the discharge of four former women employees from allegations of defamation.

The director had alleged that after resigning from the company, the women employees had misappropriated confidential client data and documents, and thereafter lodged false sexual harassment complaints against him, leading to the registration of four FIRs.

The Metropolitan Magistrate had earlier dismissed his complaint, holding that there was no entrustment to attract criminal breach of trust and that no foundational material existed to make out a case of defamation.

In revision, the Additional Sessions Judge upheld the Magistrate’s order but directed the summoning of one of the women under Section 506 of the IPC, observing that the alleged threat at the workplace to file false sexual harassment complaints prima facie disclosed the offence of criminal intimidation.

Upholding the ASJ’s decision, the High Court held that the issue of whether the FIRs lodged against the petitioner were mala fide was not the subject matter of the complaints and was irrelevant for the purpose of adjudicating the petition before it.

The Court concluded that there was no infirmity in the ASJ’s order and that no prima facie case was made out for summoning the women under Sections 182, 211, 406, 500, 506, 34 or 120B of the IPC, except in respect of one woman who was rightly summoned under Section 506 IPC.

“There is no infirmity in the impugned order dated 16.03.2017 passed by the learned ASJ affirming the order dated 02.03.2016 of the learned MM. The petition is accordingly dismissed,” the Court held.

Case Title: Rajan Sareen v. State (NCT of Delhi) & Ors.