Calcutta High Court lifts gag order on Mamata Banerjee against West Bengal Governor

The Calcutta High Court on Tuesday said that West Bengal Chief Minister (CM) Mamata Banerjee and other Trinamool Congress (TMC) leaders would be at liberty to make any statements regarding Governor CV Ananda Bose, who has sued them for defamation..The division bench of Justice IP Mukerji and Justice Biswaroop Chowdhury, however, clarified that the statements should not breach the reasonable restrictions under the law."We only clarify or modify the said order by saying that the appellants will be free to make any statement concerning his Excellency the Governor not crossing the contours of freedom of speech and expression and public duty as described above. Otherwise, the appellants run the risk of being exposed to a claim for heavy damages and other retaliatory actions," the Court said..Banerjee had moved the Division Bench against a single-judge's order restraining her from making any defamatory and incorrect statements against Governor Bose..In the order passed today, the Court said that man’s reputation is sacrosanct to him and the law gives him the right to protect this reputation. It also said that freedom of speech and expression is conferred on every citizen of India, as a fundamental right by Article 19 of the Constitution of India. "This right cannot be throttled or gagged," the Court said.However, it added that the freedom of expression is subject to reasonable restrictions."Every member of the public has the right to know the truth and if the truth is in the public interest, a member of the public has every right to expose it. If this right is vested in every citizen, such right is vested with more responsibility in the Chief Minister. But expression of this freedom is subject to certain conditions under the law of defamation. The first is that it should stand the test of justification or truth or must be a fair comment or the maker of the statement must owe a duty to the persons to whom the defamatory statement was published, which is described as qualified privilege. If the maker fails the test he is liable to pay damages in the civil action and may be charged with commission of an offence.".On the order restraining Banerjee and three others from making any defamatory or incorrect statements against the Governor, the Court said the Single Judge had done so without any prima facie finding that the statements made earlier were defamatory."In the absence of such declaration what is the defamatory statement referred to in the impugned order which is being restrained from being published in future is not known," the Court said.It thus clarified and modified the Single Judge's order. "The learned single judge is to consider the interim application and determine it after filing of affidavits," the Court ordered..Earlier, Justice Krishna Rao had on July 15 passed an interim injunction against Banerjee, two elected members of the West Bengal State Legislative Assembly and a leader of the All India Trinamool Congress (TMC).The order was passed on an interim application moved by Governor Bose in the defamation suit filed by him. Bose had moved the High Court after Banerjee had made a statement that women no longer felt safe to enter the Raj Bhawan in West Bengal due to the recent sexual harassment allegations against the Governor..Justice Rao in the order had said that Bose is constitutional authority who cannot counter the personal attacks being made by Banerjee and other TMC leaders against him by using social media platform. The single-judge had also observed that the right to freedom of speech and expression is not an unfettered right in the garb of which defamatory statements can be made to tarnish the reputation of a person."This Court if of the view that in appropriate cases where the Court is of the view that the statements have been made in reckless manner in order to cause injury to the reputation of the plaintiff, the Court would be justified in granting injunction. If at this stage, an interim order is not granted it would give the free hands to the defendants to continue making defamatory statements against the plaintiff and continue to tarnish the reputation of the plaintiff," the Court added.Therefore, the Court had restrained Banerjee and others from making any defamatory or incorrect statement against Bose "by way of publication and on social platforms till August 14."This blanket gag order has now been modified by the Division Bench. .Senior Advocate SN Mookherjee with Advocates Anirban Ray, Sanjay Basu, Rajasjhri Dutta, Piyush Agarwal and S Kajaria represented the Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee.Senior Advocates Ahin Chowdhury and Dhrubo Ghosh with advocates Debjyoti Das, Ayan Chakrabarty & Sohini Mukherjee represented TMC leader Kunal Kumar GhoshAdvocates Dhiraj Trivedi, Shailendra Mishra, Rajdeep Majumdar, Moyukh Mukherjee, Navneet Mishra, Arijit Majumdar, Manabendra Nath Bandyopadhyay and Sunil Gupta represented Governor CV Ananda Bose.Advocate General Kishor Datta with advocate Amit Kr Nag and Senior Advocate Jayanta Mitra with advocate Amit Kr Nag represented other respondents. .[Read Judgment]