M J AKBAR Vs. INDIAN INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THESE Criminal Original Petitions are filed to quash the proceedings in CC.Nos.7714 and 7716/2000 on the file of the learned Metropolitan Magistrate, Saidapet, Chennai, in so far as the Petitioner, who is the Editor-in-Chief of the English daily Newspaper "Deccan Chronicle" is concerned.

(2.) THE brief facts are stated as follows:-THE Respondent/complainant, viz. Indian Institute of Technology has been maintaining a very high standard in technical education in India and has acquired a name for its academic excellence not only in India, but throughout the world. A publication was made in the English Daily Newspaper "Deccan Chronicle" dated 8.8.2000 in Hyderabad and Bangalore Editions, which reads as under:-"Ap Tribal Girl Fights Her Way Into Iit, Brilliant Student Declared Failed, Tops After Re-Examination.An Andhra tribal girl has managed to wrest admission into the prestigious IIT here after waging a do-or-die battle against the administration, which first declared her as failed but back tracked subsequently in the face of evidence in her favour and the threat of agitation by the Periyar Dravidar Kazhagam, a dalit party.Ms. Sujee Teppal, who belongs to the Kammara Tribe in Bhimvaram, was so badly shaken up on learning that she failed in physics despite topping mathematics and chemistry papers that she even attempted suicide and was saved at the nick of time by Apollo Hospital here, according to reliable sources.Extensive investigations in the Institute reveal "Sujee was failed deliberately in the Physics paper despite doing well-one suggestion widely heard in the institute corridors was that the concern teacher "punished" her because she was "too smart" for his liking"".THE Respondent has filed the complaint against R.Bhagwan Singh, the Reporter, M.J.Akbar, the Editor-in-Chief and O.Thomas, the Publisher of Deccan Chronicle, arraying them as A1 to A3 for preparing and publishing the said news item in the Deccan Chronicle dated 8.8.2000 with the common intention to malign and defame the complainant and thereby committed the offence punishable under Sections 120(b), 500, 501, 502 read with 34 and 120 of IPC.

(3.) IN these Criminal Original Petitions, one of the contentions raised by Mr.Sathish Parasaran, the learned counsel for the Petitioner is that the Metropolitan Magistrate Court at Chennai has no jurisdiction to take cognizance of the offence, since the publication was made in the Hyderabad and Bangalore Editions of Deccan Chronicle and in fact, the Newspaper did not have any publishing center in Chennai and therefore, the complaint itself cannot be sustained.