It is well settled, actions of State with an oblique or indirect object will be attributed to ‘malice in law’. Kalabharati Advertising v. Hemant Vimalnath Narichania, (2010) 9 SCC 437 has summarized as follows:

“Where malice is attributed to State, it can never be a case of personal ill will or spite on part of State. It means exercise of statutory power for purposes foreign to those for which it is in law intended. It means conscious violation of law to prejudice of another, a depraved inclination to disregard rights of others, which intent is manifested by injurious acts.”

– Hon’ble Justice R.F. Nariman, State of Goa v. Fouziya Imtiaz Shaikh, [Civil Appeal No. 881 of 2021].

Between ‘malice in fact’ and ‘malice in law’, as observed by Viscount Haldane L.C. in Shearer v. Shields, [1914] A.C. 808 there is a broad distinction which is not peculiar to any particular system of jurisprudence. A person who inflicts an injury upon another person in contravention of law is not allowed to say, he did so with an innocent mind; he is taken to know the law, and he must act within the law. He may, therefore, be guilty of ‘malice in law’, although, so far as state of his mind is concerned, he acts ignorantly, and innocently. An actual malicious intention on part of a person who has done a wrongful act is a ‘malice in fact’.

_____

Also see, State of Rajasthan v. Sharwan Kumar Kumawat, [Civil Appeal Nos. 1162-1171 of 2016] decided on 01.08.2023.