CYBER DEFAMATION IN INDIA

Author: Abhishek Sanjay Jadhav, ILS Law College

ABSTRACT

In the age of social media, everyone is free to express their opinions, criticise someone or something, or post something on the internet. However, this can also harm someone's reputation, which gives rise to a case of defamation. Courts in India are increasingly getting such kinds of cases as people are also becoming aware of their legal rights. Therefore, it is pertinent to ask what can be said under the right to freedom of speech and expression on the social media apps or the internet and what would amount to defamation. Cyber defamation cases can take various forms as serious as hate speech, posting revenge porn, to as simple as posting negative reviews or comments or sending abusive and derogatory emails. Also, the challenges of jurisdiction and anonymity on social media sites due to fake profiles make these cases difficult to investigate and enforce legal action.

INTRODUCTION

As social media platforms like Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube have become an integral part of the life of almost everyone who has access to the internet, people are free to express their opinion, criticise someone, engage in debates, and make accusations. However, such an expression can sometimes harm the reputation of an individual. The digital age has brought a new front in the domain of defamation laws as the no. of defamation cases filed in court over remarks made on social media platforms by either posting something or by commenting has significantly gone up in recent years. The courts in such cases are questioned as to whether the said posts or comments are permissible under fundamental right to freedom of speech and expression or they amount to defamation and harm the individual’s reputation.

KEYWORDS – cyber defamation, social media, right to freedom of speech and expression.

WHAT IS DEFAMATION?

In ‘Black’s Law Dictionary’ defamation is defined as: “defamation means offence of injuring a person’s character, fame, or reputation by false and malicious statements.”

Salmond defined defamation as: “Defamation is the publication of a false and defamatory statement concerning another person without lawful justification.”

Defamation can either be oral, written, or by visual representation. In India defamation is actionable under both civil and criminal law. Under civil law, defamation is a tort and the plaintiff can sue for compensation whereas under criminal law such as IPC and BNS defamation is punishable with imprisonment or fine or both.

Legal Provisions On Defamation In India

Section 499, 500 of IPC

Sec 499 defines defamations and provides exceptions in cases of defamation whereas sec 500 provides punishment for defamation which can go upto 2 years of imprisonment.

Section 469 of IPC-

It provides that if someone creates fake electronic records or documents to defame someone then they are liable for punishment of imprisonment of up to 3 years and fine also.

Section 356 of BNS

The provision of sec 499 of IPC is given as it is in the new BNS.

SOCIAL MEDIA AND DEFAMATION

Criticism and defamation has a thin line separating them especially on social media which is often blurred. There is no specific legislation or rules to govern social media defamation. Defamation law under IPC and BNS and the defamation law under Tort are applicable to the cases of social media defamation.

Whereas the traditional defamation is mainly classified as libel or slander the online defamation can take various particular forms such as:

Cyberbullying- it includes acts intended to harass a person emotionally. This includes spreading rumours or post hurtful comments, etc.

Revenge Porn- non-consensual Sharing of explicit images or videos of a person to harm their reputation is called revenge porn. This act can have severe emotional and legal consequences.

False Reviews- includes posting false reviews for services received or to affect business of a competitor. This can also damage the reputation of the service provider.

Impersonation- Creating fake online profiles on the internet in another person’s name to spread false or damaging information about him is impersonation.

Hate Speech- means creating or inciting hatred about someone or something by making false allegations. Hate speech can sometimes amount to defamation but not always.

False Allegations- include accusing a person of a wrong to derogate his reputation in the eyes of others. E.g. accusing someone of a crime, etc.

CASES OF SOCIAL MEDIA DEFAMATION

There are three essentials for proving cyber defamation, -1.’The imputation made against a person should be published.’2.’Such imputation shall be in the form of visible representations’.3.’The intention behind making such imputations should be to cause harm or with the knowledge that it will harm the goodwill of the person.

Cases where posts held as defamatory
SMC Pneumatic Pvt. Ltd. vs Jogesh Kwatra is India's first case relating to online defamation. In this case the company’s managing director and other employers of the company's subsidiaries received defamatory, derogatory, obscene, indecent, vulgar, dirty, and abusive emails from an unknown sender who was an employee of the company. The Delhi High Court in this case recognised the act of sending derogatory emails as a tort of defamation and passed an ex-parte injunction. The court further restrained the employee from sending any derogatory emails to the plaintiff or any subsidiary of SMC Pneumatic Pvt ltd., to safeguard the company’s reputation. This case is significant in the history of cyber defamation as the question of online defamation was dealt with for the first time, however, there is no judgment but an interim order in this as the appellants did not pursue the case.
In the case of Anuraag Mittal vs Flipkart Internet Pvt Ltd. 2020, The court accepted defamatory social media posts as admissible evidence. The case involved defamatory reviews and comments on an e-commerce platform, which allegedly damaged the plaintiff’s reputation. The court ruled that online content, even if ephemeral, could serve as grounds for legal action and admitted screenshots and digital traces as evidence. This judgement marks a pivotal step in acknowledging the impact of social media on defamation cases and sets a precedent for using online posts as legal evidence.
Kalandi Charan Lenka vs State Of Odisha

In this case the girl received obscene messages from an unknown number, her father also received such messages about the girl imputing her character. Consequently, a fake Facebook account was created in the name of the victim girl and morphed naked pictures of the girl were posted on it to outrage her modesty. The Orissa high observed such an act to be defamatory.

Rajiv Dinesh Gadkari v Smt. Nilangi Rajiv Gadkari

In this case after the wife got divorce on the grounds of cruelty the husband created fake profiles on websites in the name of the wife suggesting she was looking for partners and posted defamatory and disgusting content as the description of the profile. Based on this the wife received several emails. The court observed this act as defamatory and bad in taste.

Arvind Kejriwal case

Arvind Kejriwal had retweeted Dhruv Rathee’s video on his twitter handle which had certain allegations regarding Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) IT cell. Subsequently, a defamation case was filed against Mr Kejriwal and a summons order was issued. Mr. Kejriwal challenged this case in Delhi High Court. The Delhi High Court however refused to quash the FIR and upheld the summons order. The Hon’ble Delhi High Court observed that “retweeting defamatory content amounts to defamation as retweeting a content, which is allegedly defamatory, on the Twitter account and projecting it to be as if his own views, will prima facie attract the liability under Section 499 of IPC, for the purpose of issuance of summons”. The Court held that “The rigours of Section 499 IPC will be attracted prima facie in case a person will retweet/repost the alleged defamatory remarks or content, for the general public to see, appreciate and believe.” However, the Supreme Court has stayed the criminal defamation proceedings against Mr. Kejriwal. Therefore now it will be decided by the apex court whether retweeting amounts to defamation.

Cases Where Posts Did Not Amount To Defamation
Addictive Learning Technology Limited v. Aditya Narayan Garg (2025)( Lawsikho case )
In this case lawsikho co-founder had made a tweet on X (formerly Twitter) which discussed hiring trends in the legal industry and criticized the role of National Law Universities (NLUs) in campus placements. The tweet claimed that NLUs had become less relevant in legal recruitment, as law firms were now preferring experienced candidates from other institutions over fresh NLU graduates. This provocative statement triggered strong reactions.
The respondents had commented on the said thread and claimed that Lawsikho was selling pipe dreams and profiting on student’s insecurities. Lawsikho filed for compensation for defamation claiming such allegations, Not only damaged their reputation but also undermined the trust of potential clients and investors in their organisation.
The Delhi High Court held that expressing an opinion cannot be penalised unless the opinion leads to harm, injury or loss to the aggrieved party. The court emphasized that a plaintiff cannot simply claim that a defendant's statement carries an innuendo, instead they must clearly plead and substantiate the facts and context that give the words a specific defamatory meaning. Additionally, in defamation cases on social media the plaintiff is required to disclose the entire conversation thread including their own comments or tweets and must act with integrity. consequently, the court dismissed the plaint and imposed cost of 1 lakh.

Madras High Court case

The case was filed by an advocate as an appeal against a lower court order dismissing his plea for criminal defamation against respondent. The respondents who were clients of the advocate posted negative reviews on google for the legal service received by the advocate. The advocate argued that the negative review amounted to defamation. The Madras high court held that the lower court rightly observed that the right to freedom of speech and expression under Article 19 (1) covers such an expression of opinion for services received on online platforms and the same would not amount to defamation.

LIABILITY OF INTERMEDIARIES IN CASES OF DEFAMATION

Generally online platforms such as Google, YouTube, Facebook, Instagram only act as intermediary for the users or platform providers and are not liable for any defamatory content posted on them. This protection granted to social media platforms is also known as the ‘safe harbour principle’. This principle is also given legal effect under section 79 of the Information Technology Act,2000. However, it has some exceptions, these are:

“The intermediary has conspired or abetted or aided or induced, whether by threats or promise or otherwise in the commission of the unlawful act;”
“Upon receiving actual knowledge, or on being notified by the appropriate Government or its agency that any information, data or communication link residing in or connected to a computer resource, controlled by the intermediary is being used to commit the unlawful act, the intermediary fails to expeditiously remove or disable access to that material on that resource without vitiating the evidence in any manner”.

Therefore, if the intermediary after being notified of defamatory content does not remove it will be held liable for such defamation.

The latest case where an intermediary was held liable for defamation is, Google India Private Limited v. M/S. Visaka Industries and another (2019). The Court did not grant protection to Google as it did not remove defamatory content even after the complainant asked Google to remove it. The Court held the refusal to remove the material in dispute from the internet to be punishable under the provisions of IT Act and the defamation law will attract the clutches of Section 499 of IPC.

CHALLENGES IN CASES OF SOCIAL MEDIA DEFAMATION

Jurisdiction

A major legal obstacle in cyber defamation cases is determining jurisdiction. Since online defamatory content can be accessed globally, identifying the appropriate court with jurisdiction becomes a complex issue. The main challenge in jurisdiction is where to file the case, at the place where the plaintiff resides, at the place where the defendant resides or where the defamation has occurred.

Sections 19 and 20 of the Civil Procedure Code, 1908 provide for territorial jurisdiction for actions In Personem. Sec 19 has 3 essentials, 1) Firstly it applies to cases where harm is caused to a person or movable property 2) Secondly, it is applicable only when the location where the harm occurred differs from the defendant’s place of residence. 3) Thirdly if this second condition is met, the plaintiff can choose to file the case either in the defendant’s place of residence or at the location where the harm occurred.

Section 19 of CPC applies to cases of defamation as defamation is a personal wrong. In the Escorts case, and Ajay Pal Sharma v. Udaiveer Singh, the Delhi high court dealt with cyber defamation where the defamatory content was published in multiple locations, including the defendant’s domicile outside Delhi. The court determined that the plaintiff could only file the suit at the defendant’s domicile because section 19 provides the plaintiff a choice of jurisdiction only when no publication occurs at the defendant’s domicile.

Anonymity

The anonymity of users and the prevalence of fake profiles further complicate efforts to identify the actual offenders.

CONCLUSION

Cyber defamation in India represents a growing challenge in an increasingly digital world. With the rise of social media and online platforms the potential for reputational harm through defamatory content has significantly increased. India’s legal framework including provisions under Information Technology Act, 2000 and IPC and BNS provide mechanisms to address such offences. However, these laws must continually evolve to keep pace with the complexities of cyber crime. awareness and responsible use of digital platforms play a crucial role in curbing cyber defamation. Therefore citizens, organizations, and governmental bodies must work together to foster a culture of accountability and ethical online behaviour. Cyber defamation is punishable under sec 499 of the IPC and sec 356 of BNS. The courts in India have observed that there is a difference between defamation and mere criticism. Hurting one's emotions would not amount to defamation and there must be actual damage to the reputation. In the Subramanian swamy case, the Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of sec 499 of IPC and observed that it is a reasonable restriction on the right to freedom of speech and expression.