G NARASIMHAN G KASTURI AND K GOPALAN FRANK MORSES AND M KRISHNASWAMI A M SWARAMAN AND M KRISHNASWAMI Vs. T V GHOKKAPPA :T V GHOKKAPPA :T V CHOKKAPPA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) These appeals, founded on special leave, are directed against the judgment of the learned Single Judge of the High Court of Madras dismissing the applications filed by the appellants for quashing charges under Ss. 500 and 501 of the Penal Code framed by the Presidency Magistrate, Madras. The common question raised in all these appeals is whether the respondent (the original complainant) was an aggrieved person competent to file the said complaints within the meaning of S. 198 of the Code of Criminal Procedure read with S. 499, Explanation (2) of the Penal Code.

(2.) The complaint came to be filed in the following circumstances:

(3.) The appellants are and were at the material time the editors and publishers of three daily newspapers, the Dinmani, the Hindu and the Indian Express, all printed and published in Madras. In the issues of January 25 and 26, 1971 there appeared in the Hindu, as also in the ther two papers, a news item under the caption "Demonstration against the obscene Tableau" in which among other things was published the following: