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1.1 The circulation of the august issue of Silbil Magazine be stopped?

The final element of defamation is that the statement must be published, which simply means
that it is communicated to a person other than the claimant or the defendant.

It is humbly submitted before the Honble court that it is necessary to stop the
publication and circulation of the Silbil Magazines August issue featuring Baba
Satyanand in a Liquor advertisement causing mental distress and defamation to him and
his followers and thereby stopping the former from violating the appellants most
precinct right to dignity (reputation) defined under Article 211 of the Constitution of
India.
The universal value of reputation as a cherished constituent of life, making it as
relevant today as it was yesterday, must be vehemently protected. This idea has been
immortalized in the beautiful words of William Shakespeare in his play Othello:

Good name in man and woman, dear my lord,

Is the immediate jewel of their souls:

Who steals my purse steals trash; tis something, nothing;

Twas mine, tis his, and has been slave to thousands:

But he that filches from me my good name

Robs me of that which not enriches him,

And makes me poor indeed.

It is Further submitted that Honble supreme Court in a recent judgement in


Subramanyam Swami v. Union of India2 stated that Modern theory of constitutional rights
draws a fundamental distinction between the scope of the constitutional rights, and the
extent of its protection. Insofar as the scope of constitutional rights is concerned, it marks
the outer boundaries of the said rights and defines its contents. The extent of its
protection prescribes the limitations on the exercises of the rights within its scope. In that

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The right to enjoyment of a private reputation, unassailed by malicious slander is of ancient origin, and is
necessary to human society. A good reputation is an element of personal security and is protected by the
Constitution equally with the right to the enjoyment of life, liberty and property.
2
sense, it defines the justification for limitations that can be imposed on such a right. It
further stated that one cannot be oblivious to the fact that the right to freedom of speech
and expression is a highly valued and cherished right, but at the same time, one cannot be
unmindful of the fact that the Constitution conceives of reasonable restrictions. The right
to free speech cannot be read to mean that one citizen can defame another. The theory of
balancing of rights in the particular context of the fundamental right to speech and
expression alludes to the imperative need for protecting the human dignity of an
individual. The theory of balancing of rights dictates that along with the right to freedom
of speech and expression, there is a correlative duty on citizens not to interfere with the
liberty of others, as everyone is entitled to the dignity of person and of reputation.3

As per the analysis of Aharon Barak4, two key elements in developing the modern
constitutional theory of recognizing positive constitutional rights along with its
limitations are the notions of democracy and the rule of law. Thus, the requirement of
proportional limitations of constitutional rights by a sub-constitutional law, i.e. the
statute, is derived from an interpretation of the notion of democracy itself. In so far as
Indian Constitution is concerned, democracy is treated as the basic feature of the
Constitution and is specifically accorded a constitutional status that is recognised in the
Preamble of the Constitution itself. It is also unerringly accepted that this notion of
democracy includes human rights which is the corner stone of Indian democracy. Once
we accept the aforesaid theory (and there cannot be any denial thereof), as a fortiori, it
has also to be accepted that democracy is based on a balance between constitutional
rights and the public interests. In fact, such a provision inArticle 19 itself on the one hand
guarantees some certain freedoms in clause (1) of Article 19 and at the same time
empowers the State to impose reasonable restrictions on those freedoms in public
interest. This notion accepts the modern constitutional theory that the constitutional rights

are related. 5

3
http://www.livemint.com/Opinion/KNg7qwrvynNiOPfa1QjZ2K/Right-to-reputation-is-a-fundamental-right.html
4
Proportionality : Constitutional Rights and Their Limitation by Aharon Barak,
Cambridge University Press, 2012.
5
Supra note 2.
Interestingly, in the current milieu of wide-ranging media coverage, journalists also have
to be held accountable for making imputations/allegations sufficient to ruin the reputation
of an individual. Given the fact that in todays world there is an increasing awareness, it
has become more important now than ever that reckless or wild allegations made by any
section of the society, be it an individual or sections of media, be held accountable for
such brazen impunity.

It is most humbly submitted that now-a-days youth is very active on Internet and
anything they find interesting or critical, they share it with the other people by using
social media and whatever is seen leaves a great impression on a human mind and they
create a permanent image of it until it is made clear to them, by some influential person
that whatever they saw was not right and that influential person is only Honble Court as
people have faith in their Law and Judiciary.
Hence the circulation of the Silbil Magazines August issue should be banned featuring
Baba Satyanand in a Liquor advertisement therby clearing his image in the minds of the
general public.

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