NARASING DAS Vs. DAMODAR DASS

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The defendant No. 1 in O. S. No. 39 of 1966 on the file of the Court of the District Munsif, Pathapatnam is the appellant in this Second Appeal. The respondent filed the suit out of which the second appeal arises to recover a sum of Rs. 500/- by way of damages for defamation. The plaintiff's case was that he was a respectable Brahmin of the Village and a teacher by profession and that his son had married the daughter of the 1st defendant.

(2.) The 1st defendant failed to send his daughter to live with the son of the plaintiff and consequently there were differences between the plaintiff and the 1st defendant. The 2nd defendant is the son of the 1st defendant and the 3rd defendant is an associate of defendants 1 and 2, Because of the misunderstandings between the plaintiff and the 1st defendant, the three defendants conspired together and wrote to the plaintiff a letter dt 27-12-1965 containing highly defamatory statements about the plaintiff. Both the lower courts have found that the letter contains several defamatory statements concerning the plaintiff. The lower Courts also found that the letter was written by the 3rd defendant to the dictation of defendants 1 and 2. The trial court, however, found that there was no publication a.s the letter was sent in a closed envelope to the plaintiff himself and the two persons who saw defendants 1 and 2 dictating the letter to the ord defendant stated that they did not hear what was dictated. On appeal the learned Additional District Judge reversed the judgment and decree of the learned District Munsif and awarded damages of Rs. 50/-. He held that mere communication of the defamatory matter by the defendants to the plaintiff was sufficient publication to entitle the plaintiff to sue for damages. He also held that there was publication by defendants 1 and 2 to the 3rd defendant when the contents of the letter were dictated by them to the 3rd defendant.

(3.) Sri A. Surya Rao, learned counsel for the defendant appellants submitted that mere communication of the defamatory letter by the defendants to the plaintiff was not sufficient publication to entitle the plaintiff to recover damages for defamation. There can be no doubt, whatever, that the submission of Sri Surya Rao is correct. As pointed out in Gatley's "Libel and Slander" 4th Editipn Page 84 : "By publication is meant the making known of the defamatory matter, after-it has been written, to some person other than the person of whom it is written. It the statement is sent straight to the person of whom it is written there is no publication of it. The uttering of a libel to the party libelled is clearly no publication for the purposes of a Civil action, A communication of the defamatory matter to the person defamed cannot injure his reputation though it may wound his self-esteem. A man's reputation is not the good opinion he has of himself, but the estimation in which others hold him".