The Supreme Court on Monday stayed criminal defamation proceedings against senior journalist Rajdeep Sardesai in a case for allegedly making false implication against a senior Hyderabad police officer in connection with the 2007 Sohrabuddin encounter case.
A bench of Justices Prafulla C Pant and Amitava Roy also tagged his petition, filed along with seven others associated with the case with other matters, in which constitutional validity of sections 499 (defamation) and 500 (punishment for defamation) of the IPC has been challenged.
BJP leader Subramanian Swamy, Arvind Kejriwal and others have also challenged the validity of the criminal defamation law and have sought to decriminalise it.