New Delhi, September 8(HS): The Supreme Court on Monday dismissed a petition filed by the Bharatiya Janata Party’s Telangana unit seeking revival of a criminal defamation case against Telangana Chief Minister Revanth Reddy over his remarks that the BJP would abolish caste-based reservations if it secured 400 seats in the Lok Sabha.

A three-judge bench led by Chief Justice B.R. Gavai, along with Justices K. Vinod Chandran and Atul S. Chandurkar, refused to entertain the plea challenging the Telangana High Court’s decision to quash the complaint. “Courts cannot be converted into political battlegrounds,” observed CJI Gavai, adding, “If you are in politics, you should have a thick skin.”

The case stemmed from a complaint by BJP’s Telangana General Secretary Karam Venkateshwarlu, who alleged that Reddy’s statement was defamatory. The High Court, however, concluded that the alleged remarks targeted the BJP nationally and not its state unit, ruling that the petitioner could not claim to be an “aggrieved person” under Section 199(1) of the Code of Criminal Procedure. It also stressed that political speeches often involve exaggeration and cannot lightly be treated as defamatory.

The trial court had earlier directed initiation of proceedings against Reddy under several IPC provisions—including sections on conspiracy, sedition, promoting enmity, and defamation—along with Section 125 of the Representation of People Act, 1951. Reddy successfully challenged this before the High Court, a decision now upheld by the Supreme Court.

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Hindusthan Samachar / Jun Sarkar