SC rejects Kannada weekly newspaper Editor’s plea against conviction in defamatory case

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Friday refused to entertain a journalist’s plea challenging his conviction and one-month jail term for writing defamatory news articles in his weekly Kannada newspaper against an advocate, saying this is ”typical yellow journalism”.

A bench comprising Chief Justice NV Ramana and justices Surya Kant and Hima Kohli referred to the language used by D S Vishwanatha Shetty and said he deserved more as a sentence. ”Look at the kind of language you have used and you claim yourself to be a journalist! This is typical yellow journalism. We have to protect advocates also,” observed the bench while dismissing the appeal against the conviction.

”They (HC and trial court) were very liberal with only one-month conviction. He deserves more than that,” the bench said. T N Rathnaraj had lodged a private defamation complaint against Shetty alleging that the journalist, who is the Editor of Kannada weekly newspaper ‘Tunga Varthe’, had published several news articles leveling baseless against him.

The Karnataka High Court, in 2015, upheld Shetty’s conviction by the trial court for the offense of defamation and awarded him a jail term of one moth besides a fine of Rs 50,000.