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A petition was filed in the High Court of Karnataka challenging an order passed by a civil court in a defamation suit.
A civil suit was lodged against the petitioner by the complainants wherein allegations of having committed a tort of defamation were raised against the petitioner. Alleging so, the plaintiff through the civil suit claimed damages amounting to Rs.10 crores. While the plaintiff had submitted adequate evidence to support their claim, the defendant who is the petitioner in the present case had at numerous instances failed to submit evidence or remained absent from the proceedings, hence, his evidence was recorded as nil by the court. Thereafter, upon progressing to the trial stage of the suit, the defendant sought to reopen the suit stage of the case. The trial court observed that several applications of re-opening of the suit stage were filed by the defendants and no evidence was being produced upon the reopening of the stage by the court. Hence, the court held that the applications were filed by the defendant solely with an intention of delaying the proceedings and declined the defendant’s application.
Upon the dismissal of the application, the petitioner, through a writ petition approached the Karnataka High Court and sought to quash the order of the civil court. Observing the events of the case and recording the reasons of the court for declining the request for reopening of the suit for submission of evidence by the petitioner, the HC rejected the petition. The HC opined that the case being one that deals with defamation needed to be “tried as expeditiously as possible”. The court observed the right to reputation to be a constitutional right as under Article 21 of the Constitution and held that such suits must be disposed of before the public memory of the defamatory event fades. Adding that monetary damages awarded in such cases by no means fully recompensate the injury to a person’s reputation, the HC stated that under no circumstances must there also be a delay injustice.
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