THOMAS Vs. ABRAHAM VARUGHESE

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The Criminal Revision Petition is by the accused in C.C. No. 43 of 1960 of the Kottayam Sub-Divisional Magistrates Court, pending in the First Class Magistrates Court, Changanacherry.

(2.) The complaint against the three accused persons was under S.500 I.P.C. for having published a libellous matter in the Kerala Janatha a daily newspaper published from Trivandrum. The 1st accused is the correspondent of the paper from Manimala, the 2nd accused is a member of the Manimala Panchayat and a Praja Socialist Party worker and the 3rd accused is the printer and publisher of the paper which is the organ of the Praja Socialist Party. The complaint was first filed before the Ponkunnam First Class Magistrate. The Magistrate took cognizance of the complaint and took it on his file. It was later transferred to the Sub-Divisional Magistrates Court, Kottayam where accused 1 & 2 field a petition praying that they be discharged under S.253 (2), Criminal P.C. as the complaint and the sworn statement contained no allegation of the libel being published within the territorial jurisdiction of the Ponkunnam First Class Magistrate who took cognizance of the complaint. The petition was dismissed as unsustainable. The correctness of the order is challenged in this revision.

(3.) A few facts relevant for the disposal of the revision may be mentioned. The complainant is a resident of Ponkunnam as also are accused No. 1 who is the Manimala correspondent of the paper and accused 2 at whose instigation the news is said to have been published in the paper. The alleged defamatory matter was published in two issues of the paper and they were produced before the Magistrate. It is seen from the paper that the defamatory matter was sent by the 1st accused from Manimala. It is alleged in the complaint that the news was read out by accused 1 & 2 to some persons. Among the persons to whom the news was read out are witnesses 5, 6 & 7 in the witness list who are residents of Manimala. The witness list itself specifies that they are cited to prove that accused 1 & 2 had read over the news that was published in the paper to them. Thus there are ample indications in the complaint and the sworn statement taken along with the witness schedule that it is the complainants case that the news was published at Manimala. The learned Magistrate was also of the view that though there is no definite assertion in the complaint of the fact of publication of the news within the local limits of the Ponkunnam Magistrates Court, a reading of the records as a whole indicates that the complainants case is that the news was published within the local limits of that Court.