In a democracy, the opposition party members must use temperate language and avoid vituperative outbursts or scurrilous sharp tongue slanders while criticising the ruling party because the seriousness of the constructive issues raised by them may get sidetracked due to such offensive statements, the Madras High Court has advised.
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Justice N. Anand Venkatesh gave the advice while quashing two criminal defamation cases filed by the State government against former Law Minister C.Ve. Shanmugam of AIADMK and refusing to quash two other cases because of the language he had used against Chief Minister M.K. Stalin. The judge found the language to be prima facie defamatory.
Impressing upon the need to recognise the opposition as legitimate and giving it an institutional form, the judge said its main role was to make constructive criticism of the government, its policies, plans and programmes and make the latter work in accordance with social welfare and public good. The opposition must make the government accountable to people.
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“A constructive opposition will expose the weaknesses of the government and it is the opposition which is the guardian of public interest... Opposition provides checks and balances in the functioning of a democracy. Therefore, it must be ensured that the opposition is not throttled and prevented from voicing their concern by subjecting them to undergo criminal cases,” he wrote.
Giving a piece of advice to the opposition, Justice Venkatesh said: “Howsoever noble is the intention behind making certain statements, the offensive and opprobrious language can sidetrack the issue that has been raised and they will be construed more as defamatory. This is more so when personal attacks are made against the public servants/constitutional functionaries by vilifying them.”
He went on to state: “It is expected in a matured democracy that the opposition expresses its views in a language, which does not cross the limits and becomes defamatory.” The observations were made after hearing Senior Counsel Vijay Narayan, assisted by the former Minister’s counsel on record M. Mohamed Riyaz, and Advocate General P.S. Raman assisted by Government Advocate K.M.D. Muhilan.
After going through all four speeches made by the quash petitioner, the judge came to a conclusion that two of them were prima facie defamatory in nature and therefore the former Minister must necessarily face trial in those two cases. The other two speeches were not directly attributable to the discharge of public function by the Chief Minister and hence the judge quashed the prosecution related to them.