ANSHU DHARMENDRA BRAHMBHATT Vs. VANDANA SHINDE

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Heard Ms. Rebecca Gonsalvez, learned counsel for the Petitioner, Mr. Rajendra Singh Saluja, learned counsel for the Respondent No.1 and Mr. Arfan Sait, learned APP for the State.

(2.) In this Petition, the Petitioner has challenged the order dtd. 13/06/1999 passed by the Judicial Magistrate Fist Class, Court No.9, Pune, in MA 1973/2018, which is now numbered as S.C.C. No.32162/2019. By the impugned order the Magistrate has issued process against the Petitioner u/s 500 of the Indian Penal Code .

(3.) The complainant is the Respondent No.1 in the present Petition. She has filed this complaint for defamation based on certain averments made by the Petitioner in her own complaint filed under Sec. 12 of the Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act, 2005 (D.V. Act ). The Petitioner had filed that complaint against her husband and his other relatives. That complaint is pending before the Court of Metropolitan Magistrate, Mulund, under D.V. Application No.87/DV/2017. Significantly, the Respondent No.1 in this Petition is not a Respondent in those proceedings under the D.V. Act . The allegations against the present Petitioner in the complaint filed by the Respondent No.1 pertains to the averments in Petitioner's complaint under the D.V. Act . At this stage, it is not necessary to reproduce those allegations. In my opinion, the matter requires consideration on a larger issue. Suffice it to say that in those averments there are allegations that the Petitioner's husband was having illicit relations with other women and allegedly one of them was referred by the Respondent No.1's name. It is the Respondent No.1's case in her complaint that the Petitioner's husband's family informed her about the complaint filed by the Petitioner under the D.V. Act . The Petitioner's husband's family told her that the Petitioner had filed that complaint to defame, humiliate and insult the Respondent No.1 herein. They showed her a copy of the application made by the Petitioner.