CHENNAI: The Madras High Court recently held that a lawyer should not be made liable for defamation for statements made by him upon a client's instructions.
Justice GK Ilanthiraiyan observed that a lawyer speaks only on behalf of the client and has no opportunity to verify the truthfulness of facts narrated by the client. The court held that responsibility for such statements rests with the client, and any contrary view would be against settled law on lawyers' privilege.
It added that no lawyer can be prosecuted for defamation for statements made on a client's instructions, and any liability arising from such instructions would lie with the client.
The court was hearing a petition filed by a lawyer seeking to quash a criminal case pending before the judicial magistrate, Tiruvallur under Sections 500 and 109 of the IPC.
The case arose from a private complaint by a man alleging that his wife and her lawyer had disseminated false allegations of sexual harassment as a counter to his petition. The woman had also moved the High Court to quash the case.
The man claimed that after he filed a suit to declare the marriage null and void, his wife, with the advocate's instigation, filed a Pocso complaint using their minor daughter and spread false allegations, which were later dismissed by the Mahila Court.
The court termed the complaint against the lawyer an abuse of process of law and quashed it, while refusing to quash the case against the woman and directing trial completion within three months.