SUNILAKHYA CHOWDHURY Vs. H M JADWET

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This Rule must be made absolute. The present revisionsal application is for quashing, in so far as it relates to the petitioner, a criminal case being C. R. Case No. 638 of 1966, pending in the Court of the Additional District Magistrate at Port Blair. Andaman and Nicobar Islands under Section 500 I. P C.

(2.) The facts leading on to the present revisional application may be put in a short compass. On the 14th May 1965 in the issue of the "Darpan" a Bengali weekly published In Calcutta, an editorial article was published containing an alleged defamatory imputation against the complainant firm, viz., R. Akoji Jadwet and Company This weekly used to be printed at a press owned by a Limited company, viz., the Metropolitan Printing and Publishing House(P) Ltd. and at the relevant time, the present petitioner, Sunilakhya Chowdhury, was one of the Directors of the Company. The accused petitioner was neither the maker, that is the author nor the printer nor the publisher of the impugned publication and has been prosecuted as he is a director of the Company which owns the Press and which did the job of printing the said journal. The opposite party No. 2, Hiren Basu, is the Editor Publisher, Printer and the owner of the said Bengali journal as per the declaration under Rule 3 of the Press and Registration Act.

(3.) The complainant opposite party No. 1 filed a petition of complaint on the 22nd March, 1966 in the Court of the Additional District Magistrate. Port Blair. Andaman and Nicobar Islands against the present petitioner and the accused opposite party No. 3 inter alia on the allegations that the accused persons made, printed and published for public consumption, certain false and highly tendentious remarks in the publication called the "Darpan", which is a Bengali Weekly. In its 16th issue dated Friday the 14th May 1965 alleging insinuating and impugning complicity of the complainant and his partners with the alleged loss of 25 trategic from the office of the Chief Commissioner at Port Blair, Andaman and Nicobar Islands. It was further averred therein that the Court at Port Blair has jurisdiction to entertain and try the accused there as the accused had made and published by selling and circulating for sale at Port Blair and Calcutta copies of the Weekly containing the said defamatory matters. No list of the prosecution witnesses, however, was filed along with the petition of complaint.