Appearing for Moitra, Senior Advocate Kapil Sibal told the Court that after this broadcast, a Zee News reporter harassed the MP in the Parliament premises, repeatedly called her a thief, and shoved a mic in her face.
He said that it was in response to this that she lost her cool and called them a thief. Sibal added that her action was not premeditated, and was a spur-of-the-moment reaction.
In response to Justice Gupta’s question on whether Moitra having filed a case against Zee for calling her a thief is as much a defamation matter as Zee filing a case against her for the same, Sibal said that in Moitra’s case it was a reaction even as the news channel ran an hour-long programme calling her a member of the ‘Tukde-Tukde Gang’ and levelling several other allegations.
Sibal said that Moitra is protected under many judgments of the Supreme Court that hold that spur-of-the-moment reactions do not fall under defamation.
Source: Barandbench
