If and when such retraction or apologies are not forthcoming, civil action is preferred and a suit for damages filed, as has been the case with Benazir Bhutto vs The News International. In this context, the Governor of Sindh Mr. Kamaluddin Azfar's decision to press criminal charges against the Newsline editor, reporter and printer breaks dangerous new ground. These exceptions have been given wide recognition in the modest caselaw developed in Pakistan.
Defamation is a crime because it is considered to have a tendency to promote breach of peace.
However, if this is so then criminal charges must only be brought about in cases of defamation where the imputations go beyond the individuals involved and create a public breach of peace. In the civil law perspective, the reputation of a person is his invaluable property. Accordingly, the civil law remedy aims to secure compensation for the aggrieved for wrongful loss of the esteem in which other people previously held the person who claims to be defamed. The history of the law of defamation in Pakistan is traced back to 1860 when her Majesty's government enacted the present law in the Indian subcontinent. It goes to the credit of Mohammad Khan Junejo's government that it repealed this drastic amputation to Section 499 ordered by General Zia and restored the exceptions.