NEW DELHI (PTI):Fifteen years after “Indian Express” published a news report on demolitions around Turk man gate in Old Delhi during emergency, a Delhi court July 20 found its former editor-in-chief and an erstwhile correspondent guilty of defaming Jag Mohan, the then Delhi Development Authority (DDA) vice chairman,
The case which lingered on for over 13 years pertained to a complaint of Jagmohan in which he alleged that the correspondent, Javid Laiq, had attributed to him some objectionable statements against the Muslim community.
The metropolitan magistrate, V.K .Maheshwari Monday held the former editor-in-chief, S .Mulgaokar, and Javid Laiq guilty and said the report, published on April 19,1977 had made imputations against Jagmohan without caring for any verification.
The magistrate gave an opportunity to the two to be heard on the question of the length of sentence and fixed the case for final disposal for July 22.
In his complaint filed in June 1979, Jagmohan, who has also been lieutenant governor of Delhi, had alleged that the editor-in-chief, editor, printer and correspondent of “Indian Express” had lowered his image and harmed his reputation by publishing the impugned report.
The report quoted Jagmohan as saying, regarding demolitions, that “we’ll do what we want. We won’t allow a second Pakistan here.”
The report also said that the “pet theory” of Jagmohan was that “if Muslim communities, such as the: one around Jama Masjid, were not dispersed, there would be no national integration.”
The magistrate, in his 58-page Judgement, held that the imputations by the correspondent lowered — the reputation of the complainant in the eyes of a right-minded citizen and a man of fair and average intelligence as they gave an impression that Jagmohan had a communal bias against the Muslims,
In contrast the evidence of witnesses, when put to cross examination contained material contradictions, the Judgement noted.
Article extracted from this publication >> Aug 7, 1992
