NARAYANA DAS Vs. PAPANNA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Having regard to the similitude of facts and the question of law involved in these cases and also taking into consideration that all the cases arise out of a common incident, these six revision petitions are clubbed, heard together and disposed of by this common order.

(2.) Heard the learned Counsel for the petitioners and the learned Amicus Curiae for the respondents.

(3.) The respondent/complainants had filed three separate private complaints against the appellants herein alleging that the petitioners/accused had committed the offence punishable under Sec. 500 IPC. It is their specific case that accused no.1 (Narayana Das) was the News Reporter and accused no.2 (Kalavida Vishnu) was the Editor and Publisher of Kannada Weekly Newspaper - Kannada Tilaka which was published from Malur. It was alleged in their complaint that a news article which was published in the aforesaid weekly newspaper dtd. 12/6/2000 as per Ex.P-1 contained the defamatory article, wherein it was stated that the complainants were indulged in land grabbing and in the institutions run by the complainants, admission was not given to students belonging to Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe and the article also narrated about the maladministration of the educational institutions by the complainants.