A journalist cannot be prosecuted for defamation if the published article does not specifically name or accuse an individual, reinforcing the importance of freedom of speech in public discourse.

1. The petitioner is a reporter of daily newspaper 'Early Times' for District Poonch. It is stated by the petitioner that the work of the petitioner is only to provide information to the head office of 'Early Times' situated at Gujjar Nagar, Jammu and there is one more reporter of daily newspaper 'Early times' for District Poonch, who has been assigned the same duty of reporting the news to the head office of Early Times. On 25.04.2018, a news was published in the daily newspaper 'Early Times' that ambulance of Surankote Hospital has been turned into load carrier and most of the times, when there is any emergency, officials of hospital say that the ambulance is unavailable but the government vehicles can be commonly seen serving the officials of the department and the people are forced to look for alternatives. The issue was raised before the CMO, Poonch and he assured that he will take appropriate action.

2. After publishing of the above - mentioned news item in the Early Times newspaper on 25.04.2018, the respondent filed a complaint under S.500 RPC, alleging therein that the petitioner in order to defame the respondent published such a news along with photographs and moreover a video of the same was uploaded on social media, that went viral among public at large. It is further stated that the news item was published to defame the respondent in public and he was put to task by the officer of the department. He was forced to remain within the four walls, and it was very hard for him to come out under such circumstances, as there was imminent threat to the life and liberty of the respondent. It was also claimed by the respondent that he was suspended by the authority and an enquiry was initiated against him in respect of the said fake news but later he was found innocent, as the photographs and video of ambulance did not match with the ambulance of the hospital.

3. The petitioner has filed the present petition for quashing the proceedings initiated in the complaint titled "Mohd. Safeer v. Rajesh Tandon" under S.500 RPC pending before the JMIC, Surankote on the following grounds:

i. That there was no imputation in the news item regarding respondent.

ii. That the Government hospital owns four ambulances and for each ambulance, there is separate driver and the news item was not attributed to any particular person. It is further stated that the petitioner is not the only reporter of the daily newspaper 'Early Times' for district Poonch and it is not necessary that every news of District Poonch is published at the instance of the petitioner and further that if anybody has to avail the service of the ambulance, he has to approach the officers of the hospital and not the driver and after getting the permission, he has to deposit the charges for the service of the ambulance. The driver has no role to give permission to anybody to avail the services of the ambulance.

iii. That there are no specific allegations whatsoever against the petitioner that the petitioner was responsible for selection of the news item and no content of the news item says that the respondent was misusing the government vehicle for personal use. The news item was published at the instance of the local people of Surankote, who were being denied the services of the ambulance meant for public use.
iv. That the complaint did not contain any imputation concerning some particular person or persons, whose identity could be established and if they contain no reflection upon a particular individual or individuals but equally applied to other although belonging to the same class, and action for defamation will not lie.

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