Lawyer’s statements in court need to be protected, can’t be termed defamatory: Delhi HC

The High Court perused the order of the sessions court issued on July 14, 2022, and noted that it simply records that part-arguments had been heard by the court.

“Thus, even if it were to be assumed that what the plaintiff is saying is correct, there would be no means to ascertain as to whether what was the question put forth by the Court and what was the exact statement that was made on behalf of the defendant. Anyway, as per the law as discussed above, the defendant being a Senior Advocate and having made the statement during the course of judicial proceedings would be protected, the statement being in the nature of absolute privilege,” the HC observed.

The HC said it cannot go into the exercise of finding out whether the statement made by the senior counsel was “irrelevant in any manner or was made with any malice”. “If every statement made by a lawyer during judicial proceedings was to be subjected to such scrutiny, then the system of judiciary would come to a literal halt as the lawyers would feel constrained in making their submissions before the Court,” the HC observed, adding that this may “interfere and hamper” the judicial process in a “detrimental manner”.

The HC held that it was necessary to protect the statements made by lawyers during the course of judicial proceedings as “absolute privilege” and that lawyers cannot be put to trial for defamation on the basis of any statements made during the course of judicial proceedings.

The HC noted that none of the businessman’s family members or friend circle were present as is evident from the session court’s order and therefore, it cannot be said that “reputation” of the businessman has been “damaged in front of his friend circle or family members”. The HC noted that a “Senior Advocate, in the scheme of things as per general code of conduct, makes statement upon instructions from the briefing counsel” therefore no malice or motive can be imputed to them for making any statement made on instructions.

“The plaintiff has not been able to make any prima facie case for registering the present plaint and for issuance of summons. In view thereof, it is held that the defamatory statement as alleged by the plaintiff in this suit is not actionable, on the ground of absolute privilege,” the HC said, rejecting the defamation lawsuit.

The plaintiff had alleged that during the proceedings before the sessions court the senior counsel made statements which were completely false, baseless, divorced from reality, scandalous and had no relation to the proceedings pertaining to the revision petition in the perjury case. It was alleged that the statement had been made by the senior advocate with malafide intentions solely to cause harm to plaintiff’s reputation and malign him at the hearing in open Court, wherein his relatives and friends were present. The businessman alleged that the senior advocate made such statements in response to a query by the judge with respect to a separate mediation proceeding in which he was not even present.

The senior advocate’s counsel submitted that the privilege of a lawyer is absolute and statement given by a lawyer in Court is absolute privilege. It was also argued that his client’s answer to the court’s query may be irrelevant, but it does not become defamatory.