Shaniya and Taniya Sharma are 25-year-old indistinguishable twins. The Sharma’s live in a settlement on the outskirts of Ba town in Fiji Islands. Shaniya was a brilliant child in secondary school and then proceeded to pursue her MBSS degree at Fiji School of Medicine campus in Suva. Apart from her studies, she aspires to become a student rep and will be contesting in the upcoming student election.
On the other hand, Taniya was an average performer in high school studies unlike her intelligent twin sister. She got into bad company and also got addicted to drugs. She left her studies incomplete, and then decided to move to her uncle’s place in Savusavu (Fiji) to work in a soap factory.
Shaniya is now into her third year of MBBS studies and has hardly talked to Taniya for three long years. Coincidentally, very few people at her campus are actually aware that she has a twin sister.
Pooja, who is classmate of Shaniya and Taniya, is also pursuing her studies at the same tertiary institution. She has always disliked Shaniya owing to her intelligent traits and does not want her to win the upcoming elections. She devises a plan and gathers an old photograph of Taniya snorting a hard drug with her friends during her school days. She sends that mistaken picture to the local newspaper agency a day before elections and left a caption that read “Ms. Sharma is a drug addict”.
The photograph was very clear and looked exactly like Shaniya. The local new agency unaware that Shaniya had an identical twin sister, published the photograph of Taniya the same day, with a caption that read, “Drug Addict for University Senate?”. The news reporter also acknowledged that it had received the photograph of “Shaniya Sharma” anonymously earlier that day. Shaniya was very distressed about that newspaper’s publication and subsequently lost the election. Thereafter, Shaniya filed defamation claims against both Pooja and the local Newspaper Agency.
1. Discuss the likely outcome of Shaniya’s defamation claim against Pooja? (4 marks)
Use IRAC method
2. Discuss the likely outcome of Shaniya’s defamation claim against Newspaper? (4 marks)
Use IRAC method
3. Discuss atleast 2(two) potential defenses for Pooja and Newspaper agency. (2 marks)