KALYAN BANDYOPADHYAY Vs. MRIDUL DE

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS Revisional application has been filed with a prayer to quash the proceedings of Complaint Case No. C/23552 of 2009 of the Court of the Ld. Chief Metropolitan Magistrate, Calcutta, as also the Order passed by him on 12.05.2009. By virtue of the said Order, cognizance was taken and issuance of processes U/Ss. 500/501 of the IPC was directed against the present petitioner, while cognizance in respect of the offences under Sections 109 read with Section 500 of the IPC was taken against the remaining 5 (five) accused persons, being The Calcutta Television Network Pvt. Ltd. and its specified Officers and Reporter.

(2.) IN para 2 of the application, the petitioner has given an elaborate and rather unwarranted introduction of himself as a sitting member of the Indian Parliament, apart from being a Legal practitioner by profession, and has averred that he is a responsible person committed to the well -being of the people within and outside West Bengal. The obvious logical suggestion would thus be that being in such position of responsibility and in the legal profession, he could not have made any irresponsible, defamatory or derogatory statement(s) to lower the reputation of his rival political party, or any of its members, for which he is now being wrongly prosecuted. It needs to be therefore mentioned at the very outset that the status or professional standing of the petitioner is inconsequential for adjudication upon the merits of his case, although the utterances imputed to him in the complaint could otherwise cast some reflection on a Parliamentarian's conduct, which might find mention elsewhere in this judgment.

(3.) IN order to consider the merits of the Revisional application on the basis of the contentions raised by the petitioner, and the case law cited on his behalf, it would appear proper to first go through the text of the alleged defamatory statements made, which have been quoted verbatim in the petition of complaint, as also the alleged defamatory Questions and Answers telecast in the programme "Voter Ghanta ". The alleged defamatory quotes are reproduced in the original language (Bengali) with their translations, followed by a text of the conversation in the Question - Answer Session (Annexure A to the complaint petition), translated by the Panelled Translator of the Central Translation Bureau, Ministry of Home Affairs, Government of India, as below -