RAMAKANT Vs. DEVILAL SHARMA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS second appeal is by defendant No. 1 who is the Proprietor and Editor of a daily Hindi Newspaper 'Inquilab' printed and published from Chhindwara. In the issue of this paper of 25th February 1961, the following news was published:- The plaintiff (respondent No. 1) is a member of the Indian National Congress and was elected as President of the District Congress Committee in the year 1961. His case was that the news quoted above related to him and was defamatory. He, therefore, claimed a sum of Rs. 5,000 as damages for the libel. The trial Court decreed the suit for a sum of Rs. 500 and this decree has been upheld in first appeal.

(2.) SHRI Y. S. Dharmadhikari, the learned counsel for the appellant, has raised before me the following three contentions:

(3.) THE news-item, Ex.P-1. contains an impressive heading which is bound to attract the attention of the ordinary person. THE heading "Bribery even in Congress Elections, Rs. 5,500 spent" will be read by him to mean that Rs. 5,500 have been spent on bribe in the Congress elections to which the news relates. THEn the first sentence of the news will bring to him the information that the news pertains to the election of the President of the District Congress Committee which has recently been held and that the news is authentic. THE second sentence will make it plain to him that the successful candidate in the election, the person who has been elected President, has spent Rs. 5,500 (the identical figure referred in the heading has spent on bribe) for obtaining the votes of Mandleshwars (voters who elect the District President). In my view, the natural and ordinary meaning of the news as a whole as understood by the ordinary person would be that the newly elected District Congress President has got himself elected by paying money to the voters which is a conduct as reprehensible as bribery. This natural and ordinary meaning of the news attributes to the plaintiff, who was the newly elected President referred in it, a disgraceful conduct tending to lower him in the estimation of right thinking members of society. THE learned counsel, however, contends that as bribery in Congress elections is not prohibited under any law, the news as published cannot be held to be defamatory. This contention is without any substance. For holding a statement as defamatory it is not necessary that the statement should attribute to the plaintiff some act prohibited by law, but the test, which I have already quoted above, is to see whether the statement tends to lower the plaintiff in the estimation of right thinking members of society. Although there is "a broad territory common to law and morality", "where law and morality reinforce and supplement each other as part of the fabric of social life", there are many fields of human activity where "the law shrinks, for one reason or another, from pursuing what may nevertheless be recognized as the authentic path of morality.". (See Dennis Llloyd, the Idea of Law, pelican edition, pp. 57 and 59). It cannot, therefore, be said that imputing to a person certain acts, which are not prohibited by the law, is not to attribute to him a disgraceful conduct affecting his moral character. If the conduct attributed to the plaintiff is a disgraceful conduct affecting his moral character tending to lower him in the estimation of right thinking members of society, the test that the statement is defamatory is satisfied notwithstanding that the conduct attributed is not prohibited by the law. I have no doubt in my mind, that a right thinking Indian citizen who after every five years votes in free and fair elections to send his representatives to the Parliament and State Legislatures, would have nothing but feelings of contempt and ridicule for a person who gets elected to an important office of an important political party organisation such as the Indian National Congress by bribing the voters. Rejecting the first contention of the learned counsel for the appellant, I hold that the news item, Ex. P-1, in its natural and ordinary meaning adversely affected the character of the plaintiff and was per se defamatory.