SRINAGAR: The Jammu Kashmir and Ladakh High Court has quashed criminal defamation proceedings against Vineet Jain, Managing Director of Bennett, Coleman and Co. Ltd., holding that a Managing Director cannot be prosecuted for a newspaper’s publication in the absence of specific allegations linking him to editorial decisions. The court also ruled that mistakenly identifying an engineer as an Army soldier, even by publishing his photograph alongside a report of a soldier’s killing, did not amount to defamation.
Justice Sanjay Dhar passed the order on July 13, 2026, allowing a petition filed by Jain challenging a complaint pending before the Judicial Magistrate First Class (City Judge), Srinagar, as well as the magistrate’s order dated April 23, 2019, issuing process against him.
The case arose from the publication of a news report on April 7, 2019, in several newspapers, including the Sunday Times, reporting the killing of an Army soldier in Sopore a day earlier. The report allegedly carried the photograph of Aman Zargar instead of the deceased soldier. Zargar subsequently filed a criminal complaint alleging that the publication had damaged his reputation, endangered his life by portraying him as an Army man, exposed him to threats from militant groups and led to his social boycott.
Representing the petitioner, advocate Mushtaq Mohammad Bhat argued that Jain, as Managing Director of Bennett, Coleman and Co. Ltd., had no role in selecting or approving editorial content. He submitted that under the Press and Registration of Books Act, 1867, responsibility for newspaper content rests with the Editor, who alone enjoys the statutory presumption regarding control over published material. No one appeared on behalf of the respondent during the hearing before the High Court.
Justice Dhar examined the provisions of the Press and Registration of Books Act and referred extensively to the Supreme Court’s judgment in K.M. Mathew v. K.A. Abraham (2002), which held that while persons such as Managing Editors or Chief Editors may be prosecuted if there are specific allegations against them, the statutory presumption under the Act applies only to the Editor named in the newspaper.
The court noted that the declaration filed by The Times of India identified Neelam Raaj as the Editor responsible for the selection of news under the Act. Since the complaint contained no specific allegation that Jain had any role in selecting or approving the disputed report, there was neither a statutory presumption nor any factual basis to prosecute him.
Justice Dhar further observed that the complaint itself did not disclose the ingredients of defamation.
“If an Engineer is mistakenly shown as an Army personnel, it can by no stretch of reasoning be stated that his reputation has been harmed. In fact, being a member of Indian Armed Forces in itself is a privilege and if a person is mistakenly shown as an Army personnel, the reputation of that person instead of being harmed would get enhanced,” the court held.
The court also found that the trial magistrate had failed to apply their judicial mind before issuing process against Jain.
Another factor weighed by the High Court was that the co-accused had already been acquitted after a competent court dismissed the complaint against them on December 15, 2025. In these circumstances, Justice Dhar held that continuation of proceedings against Jain alone could not be sustained.
Allowing the petition, the High Court quashed the criminal complaint and all proceedings arising from it against Vineet Jain, bringing to an end the seven-year-old litigation that originated from the publication of the erroneous photograph in April 2019.
