Want to get confused? Bring in a lawyer to the discussion. Please let not the lawyers and judges be the arbitrators of moral values.

For a layman like me this is a classic example of "baal ka khal nikalna"! "Freedom of speech" is never intended to mean freedom to lie. The root of defamation is lie. A man's reputation is worth much more than right to lie under the guise of freedom of speech. In these days of digital world, everything said or written is recorded for ever. We see everyday reports about a person containing a paragraph also containing all earlier statements made by any Tom, Dick or Harry about him in the past preceded by the words "It was alleged by...."  even if those statements had been proved to be wrong subsequently. Don't we all remember how some Congress people tried with the full help of media exercising its 'freedom of speech' to defame our PM before the election by associating him with some lady whom he was alleged to be having some secret relationship? Vyapam originated when UPA govt was in power but 'freedom of speech' of media is making it out to be a crime committed by a BJP Govt which came to power three years later!

No law, Constitutional or Criminal, can make lying a non-punishable offence with freedom attached to it! Let's not mix up 'freedom of speech' with 'right to lie.' Generation after generation of lawyers kept on defining more and more minutely what was wrong and let the assumption of what was not wrong, to be right. As all politicians will say as long as the matter is in a court of law, I am only an accused not a culprit. How conveniently the law has been perverted! In a democratic liberal sense they also limited punishment for only what was specifically 'proved' wrong, implying if there is even some doubt about if it could be wrong, the benefit of doubt went to the culprit! A person who lies knows he is lying and he cannot be allowed to justify his lying and make it non-punishable by taking refuge in his right to freedom of speech. Just as unfettered  right to self-defence does not give you unfettered freedom to kill. Want to get confused? Bring in a lawyer to the discussion. Please let not the lawyers and judges be the arbitrators of moral values.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Can-criminal-defamation-be-diluted-Supreme-Court-asks/articleshow/48077193.cms