RAMSEBAK LAL Vs. MUNESWAR SINGH

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is a rule calling upon the District Magistrate to show cause why the proceeding which has been instituted against the petitioner should not be stayed on the ground that, under the provisions of Section 403 of the Criminal P. C., the petitioner is not liable to be tried for the offence charged against him.

(2.) The proceeding which is now pending against the petitioner is a prosecution for defamation under Section 500 of the Indian Penal Code. The petitioner contends that he is protected under Section 403, because he has been already tried and acquitted of an offence under Section 182 of the Indian Penal Code in respect of the statement now alleged to be defamatory. The facts are that the accused gave a certain information to the manager of the Bettiah Raj which was untrue. He was prosecuted under Section 182, but acquitted on the ground that the person to whom he gave the information was not a public servant within the purview of that section. That information was, as a matter of fact, defamatory of the person who was aggrieved in the present case, and it is in respect of the defamatory statements which were made to the manager of the Bettiah Raj that the present charge under Section 500 was instituted.

(3.) In my opinion, Section 403 is no bar to the present proceeding. The present petitioner certainly would not be liable to be tried again for the offence of giving false information to a public servant, nor, on the same facts, for any other offence for which a different charge from the one made against him might have been made under Section 236 of the Criminal Procedure Code, or for which he might have been convicted under Section 237. Section 236 deals with a case in which a single act, or a series of acts, is of such a nature that it is doubtful which of several offences the facts which can be proved will constitute, while Section 237 provides that, in the case mentioned in Section 236, if the accused is charged with an offence, and it appears in evidence that he committed a different offence for which he might have been charged under the provisions of that section, he may be convicted of the offence which he is shown to have committed, although he was not charged with it. Neither of these sections applies in the present case. In my opinion, under Section 237 it would certainly not have been open to the Court to convict the petitioner, when he was charged under Section 182 of an offence under Section 500, Indian Penal Code. The one is an offence committed against a public servant, which can only be prosecuted upon the complaint, or under sanction of the public servant injured, or of some one to whom he is subordinate. The offence under Section 500 can only be prosecuted on the complaint of the person aggrieved by the defamation. In one case the offence is committed against a person to whom false information is given in the other case it is committed against a person about whom a defamatory statement is made. The two offences, to my mind, are quite distinct, and the charges under them would have to be prosecuted under the authority of the different persons who are injured by them. The result is that, to my mind, Section 403 is not applicable. There is no reason, therefore, to interfere with the proceedings, and the rule must be discharged. Holmwood, J.