TUSHAR KANTI GHOSE Vs. BINA BHOWMICK

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS appeal was strenuously argued for several days and certain points were canvassed on behalf of the Appellants which they or their advisers do not appear to have thought of at the time of the trial. They had pleaded in wide terms and taken all conceivable pleas in defence, more or less in the set language of the text -books; but, actually, they had joined issue on only certain of those pleas. As a result, in urging other pleas in the appeal, their learned Counsel was at times in some difficulty, as he himself candidly admitted, because the case had not been built up in the Court below in the form in which he was trying to present it.

(2.) THE appeal arises out of a suit for damages brought by two Plaintiffs against three Defendants for the publication of an alleged libel in the issue of an English daily paper, known as the "Amrita Bazar Patrika", for September 18, 1948. The first Defendant, Tushar Kanti Ghose, is the editor of the paper; the second Defendant, Nirmal Kanti Ghose, is its printer and publisher; and the third Defendant, Amrita Bazar Patrika, Limited, is a limited liability company by which the paper is owned.

(3.) IT appears that as soon as the case was opened before the learned trial Judge, an objection was taken on behalf of the Defendants that in view of Section 13 of the Indian Trade Unions Act, a suit on behalf of a registered Trade Union, such as the Amrita Bazar Patrika Press Workers' Union was, could be brought only in the name of the union itself and that a representative suit by and in the name of the president or the secretary was not maintainable. The learned Judge gave effect to that contention and by a decree passed on April 24, 1951, he dismissed the suit so far it was a representative suit. At the same time he ruled that in spite of such dismissal the suit, so far as it concerned an alleged libel on the first Plaintiff Mrs. Bina Bhowmick in her personal capacity, might proceed. The effect of that decision was that the second Plaintiff, Tarak Nath Thakur, was eliminated from the suit and the claim of the union or its members, whether made through the first Plaintiff or the second, also disappeared. The first Plaintiff having agreed to limit her claim to such damages as she could recover personally from the Defendants, the suit proceeded on that basis and ultimately the learned Judge passed a decree in her favour for Rs. 5,000 and costs and also granted an injunction against the Defendants, restraining them from further publishing the libellous words complained of or other words of like effect concerning the first Plaintiff. It is against that decree that the Defendants have appealed.