RAUL FERNANDES Vs. NAREN DOSSA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) :- This Criminal Application is filed under section 482 of Criminal Procedure Code for quashing the private complaint and the process issued against the petitioners in Criminal Case No. 1451 of 1992 pending before the Court of the learned Judicial Magistrate at Vadgaon, taluka Maval, District Pune.

(2.) THE Respondent No. 1 filed the above private complaint for the offences of defamation, for printing defamatory matters and for sale or offering for sale the printed matter containing defamatory statements which are punishable under sections 500, 501 and 502 of the Indian penal Code. The said complaint was filed in view of the editorial written under the title why we were arrested published in the issue of 6th February, 1992 of newspaper O herald. It is stated in the complaint that the said editorial tried to justify the arrest of the complainant describing him as a smuggler and making other defamatory statements about the complainant, as a result of which, the moral or intellectual character of the complainant and/or the character of the complainant in respect of his business and/or the credit of the complainant in the estimate of the others, particularly, the residents of the Lonavala has been directly or indirectly lowered. The said complaint has been filed against the editor, publisher of the Herald publication Private Limited and the petitioners who are the directors of the said publication. The petitioners who are the three directors of Herald Publication Private Limited have been arraigned to the complaint as accused Nos. 3, 4 and 5. Accused Nos. 1 and 2 are editor and publisher respectively, while accused No. 6 is the Herald Publication private Limited, who are not party to this petition.

(3.) THE perusal of the complaint shows that it does not make out case for the aforesaid offence as against the petitioners. Para 1 of the complaint states that petitioners are the directors of accused No. 6 which publishes the said herald and are as such responsible for the statements made in the said newspaper. In para 3 of the complaint it is stated that the newspaper was published, printed, sold and circulated at the instance of accused Nos. 2 to 6. Pursuant to the aforesaid complaint, the process was issued against all the accused including the petitioners. The petitioners have challenged the process issued by the learned Judicial magistrate on the ground that they are in no way concerned with the day to day publication of the said newspaper Herald nor with the actual publication of the article in question which is alleged to be defamatory. It is further stated in the application that the petitioners who are the directors of the said Company are only concerned with the overall policy and financial matters and are in no way responsible for the publication of any particular article including the article in question.