JANARDHAN SHANKAR GAIKWAD Vs. BABURAO GANPAT MORE

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS Criminal Revision Application is filed by the petitioners-original accused, being aggrieved by the order dated 3rd February 1993, passed by the II additional Sessions Judge. Satara, in Criminal Revision Application No. 175 of 1990, filed by the complainant (Respondent No. 1 herein ). By the impugned Judgment and Order dated 3rd February 1993, the n Additional Sessions Judge, Satara, allowed the Revision filed by the Complainant Baburao Ganpat More and set aside the order of discharge passed by the trial Court, by its order dated 23rd July 1990.

(2.) FEW facts, which are required to be stated, are as follows : one article, which is annexed as Exh. B at page 17 of the present petition, was published in the daily newspaper "aikya", in which it was stated that the government had taken a decision to allot some lands to some people mentioned in para 2 of the said article and that the villagers of village Kalambe made a request to Government that the said lands should not be given to those people, but that the Government Bad rejected the said request. In the subsequent paragraph some allegations were Blade against some people, whose names were not mentioned. In the second para of that article, names of those persons were mentioned to whom the Government had agreed to give plots. In all the subsequent paragraphs, none of the names are mentioned. It appears in para 2 that one Baburao Ganpat More, whose name appears in para 2 of the article, filed a complaint in the Court of the 1st Jt. Judicial magistrate, First Class, Satara, dated 7th August 1989, under Sections 500, 501, 502 read with Section 34 of the Indian Penal Code, against 12 accused, alleging that by publishing the said article in newspaper, his community as such, was defamed as allegations of theft etc. were made against the community, when in fact his community people were not indulging into such activities. According to the complaint,, original accused No. 11 was Reporter of the said newspaper "aikya" and original accused No. 12 was its Editor.

(3.) THE learned Magistrate treated this trial as 'warrant trial' and the complainant only produced himself for the purpose of recording evidence and the learned magistrate accordingly recorded his evidence and after that, he came to the conclusion that the case under Sections 500, 501 and 502 read with Section 34 of the indian Penal Code was not made out and discharged the accused by his order dated 23rd July, 1990.