The court emphasized that for an act of defamation, the person committing the act must have the intention to harm or know that the imputation will harm the reputation of the person. The court also highlighted the need for due care and attention in publishing news and the privilege of communication on a subject matter in which the party communicating has an interest or duty.

1. The petition is filed under Section 482 of Criminal Procedure Code to call for the records in C.C.No.370 of 2011 on the file of the XIII Metropolitan Magistrate, Egmore, Chennai.

2. The petitioners herein who are arrayed as A1 and A2 in the private complaint filed by the respondent herein in C.C.No.370 of 2011 on the file of the XIII Metropolitan Magistrate, Egmore, Chennai has come forward with this petition to quash the proceedings. The complaint is filed for proceeding against the petitioners herein and one Shabbir Ahamed for the offence under Section 500 IPC alleging that the contents of live telecast in NDTV-Hindu channel on 15.10.2010 continuously and the live spot report given by the 3rd accused in 7.30pm news in NDTV about the raid held in the house of the defacto complainant is libelous in nature false, imaginary and concocted by the 3rd accused and the telecast of the same by all the accused is only with an intention of causing defamation to the complainant.

3. The facts remain undisputed are that the accused 1 to 3 are the Executive Editor, senior editor and correspondent of local news TV channel NDTV-Hindu respectively, while both the accused A1 and A2 are responsible for all the news telecast in the local news channel, A3 is responsible for field news collection. The 3rd accused was during October 2006 to 2008 employed as E-reporter in Nakkiran having the complainant as Associate Editor, during that time the complainant and A3 did not get along well with each other and there was some sort of misunderstanding and displeasure between the complainant and A3. Thereafter, the 3rd accused left Nakkiran publication and joined NDTV-Hindu as Chennai correspondent. While so, on 15.10.2010, there was raid held in the house of the complainant and that the raid went on from morning till evening. All the media person including 3rd accused were present with their respective camera and mike to collect field news and in the course of search, few documents were seized from the house of the complainant by the raiding party. While the raid was going on, A3 made live spot report and the same was telecast continuously as flash/scroll news. The live spot report of A3 was also telecast in 7.30pm news item.

4. The contents of the telecast proceeded as if the complainant Kamaraj is one of the Directors of a company run by A.Raja family and one Jayasudha who is the wife of complainant Kamaraj heads Chennai branch of Radia PR firm and incriminating documents relating to his directorship in one of the software companies under the name and style "Modern Hitech" at Mumbai and one laptop are seized from his house. On the same day of the telecast, the petitioners also arranged for live discussion to be broadcast on prime time in English at 8.00pm and in Tamil 8.30pm on the news channel to ascertain the complainant's point of view and in-response to the invitation for the group discussion the chief editor of Nakkiran joined the live discussion as panelyst and aired his views defending his colleague complainant Kamaraj and his wife.

5. The present complaint came to be filed on 27.12.2010 against the chief and senior editor and the correspondent for the relief as mentioned above alleging that the contents of live spot report of A3 are false concocted and libelous in nature and it is imaginarily created by A3 with sole intention of causing ill repute, contempt and odious towards complainant in the minds of public and A1 and A2 being chief editor and senior editor, are responsible for the telecast of false and culpable news piece without due verification of the same, and many of the viewers including his readers, colleagues and members of public expressed their contempt and disrespect to the complainant and the complainant lost esteem in the minds of the public who avoided to contact and to have communication with him, because of such malafide telecast and the acts committed by A1 to A3 constitute the offence punishable under section