{"id":64169,"date":"2025-09-19T13:19:07","date_gmt":"2025-09-19T07:49:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/?p=64169"},"modified":"2025-09-19T15:03:38","modified_gmt":"2025-09-19T09:33:38","slug":"strategic-lawsuits-against-public-participation-slapp","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/strategic-lawsuits-against-public-participation-slapp\/","title":{"rendered":"Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation (SLAPP)"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2><b>Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation Latest News<\/b><\/h2>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Over a year before a civil court imposed an ex-parte injunction on journalists from publishing or circulating allegedly unverified and defamatory material against Adani Enterprises, the Supreme Court had been worried about courts recognising \u2018SLAPP\u2019 suits across jurisdictions.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2><b>About Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation<\/b><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">SLAPPs are <\/span><b>meritless suits<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> solely <\/span><b>used to drag the opposing party through protracted litigation to dry up their resources.\u00a0<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">These lawsuits are <\/span><b>typically filed by influential and wealthy individuals or businesses against people who criticise them<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, <\/span><b>conduct investigations<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, communicate, or express opinions on matters of public interest.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">SLAPPs<\/span><b> often target journalists and the media,<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> as well as <\/span><b>NGOs,<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> academics, researchers, <\/span><b>writers, artists, and human rights defenders<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">-in general people who engage in public discourse and demand accountability.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">SLAPPs <\/span><b>shut down critical speech by intimidating critics and draining their resources, <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">undermining their active public engagement.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Moreover, one<\/span><b> core characteristic <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">of this kind of action is the <\/span><b>disparity of power and resources between the plaintiff and the defendant.<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Often based upon ambiguous and elastic law provisions, SLAPPs<\/span><b> use several strategie<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">s to exhaust resources and morale, generally including <\/span><b>exorbitant claims for damages and allegations <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">designed <\/span><b>to smear, harass and overwhelm activists and\/or civil society organisations.<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">M<\/span><b>any nations (the USA, Canada, UK, <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">and others) have <\/span><b>enacted anti-SLAPP laws<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> granting early dismissal of frivolous suits and fee-shifting to protect public participation.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;\" aria-level=\"1\"><b>India has no such statute,<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> so <\/span><b>courts must rely on existing civil procedure rules <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">and constitutional guarantees. <\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;\" aria-level=\"1\"><b style=\"font-size: inherit;\">The Supreme Court of India warns against <a href=\"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/slapp-suits\/\" target=\"_blank\">&#8216;SLAPP&#8217; suits<\/a><\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, emphasizes the protection of journalistic expression in defamation cases.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>Source<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">:<\/span> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thehindu.com\/news\/national\/a-year-before-adani-case-ex-parte-gag-supreme-court-had-warned-of-slapp-against-journalists\/article70066748.ece\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">TH<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation (SLAPPs) are meritless suits solely used to drag the opposing party through protracted litigation to dry up their resources. Read more about Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation (SLAPP), Latest News<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":64186,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[21,2781,22,23],"class_list":{"0":"post-64169","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-upsc-prelims-current-affairs","8":"tag-prelims-pointers","9":"tag-strategic-lawsuits-against-public-participation","10":"tag-upsc-current-affairs","11":"tag-upsc-prelims-current-affairs","12":"no-featured-image-padding"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64169","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/23"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=64169"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64169\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/64186"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=64169"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=64169"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=64169"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}