BIRJNATH SARIN Vs. SERGEANT FMBYRNE

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is a second appeal in a suit for damages for defamation.

(2.) The Subordinate Judge gave the plaintiff a decree for Rs. 400 but his decision was reversed by the District Judge who held that the expressions used by the defendant, though intemperate, were not defamatory. The facts are that the plaintiff obtained a decree for a small sum against Tulsi, a Chamar employed in a grass farm managed by the defendant. He tock out execution and a process was issued to Tulsi which somehow or other came into the hands of the defendant who wrote on it: "The amount Rs. 41-2-0 has been lying in my office since the date of my judgment (sic). It appears to me that this is a case of malicious prosecution and so it is a Government case and does not concern Tulsi whatsoever. The decree-holder is a most insolent upstart. He came to my bungalow on a Sunday and I told him my office hours and then he would not grant a stamped receipt. The next time he came he was most insolent and was told to wait but would not and went away without the amount in question."

(3.) The plaintiff s case is that the words "the decree-holder is a most insolent upstart" are defamatory. He does not complain of the rest of the words used. The Subordinate Judge says that the plaintiff is a very respectable man who mixes in the society of the leading Rasies of Muttra and that "the tendency and effect of the words used were to defame and degrade him and render him odious and contemptible". The District Judge says that the words insolent upstart" might, in certain circumstances, be defamatory, but that they must be read with the context in which they appear and that they were not defamatory in the present case. I agree with the learned District Judge that the endorsement on the process taken as a whole means no more than that the plaintiff had behaved rudely and had declined to wait to be paid or to give a stamped receipt. It seems to me quite clear that the words complained of were not intended to throw any reflection on the birth, reputation or general character of the plaintiff nor would it be understood by any reasonable person acquainted with the English language as throwing any such reflection upon him. It was suggested that they would be regarded as holding the plaintiff up to ridicule. I cannot accept this suggestion. As the learned Judge held that the words complained of might, in certain circumstances, be defamatory but in this particular case were not, 1 doubt whether a second appeal is admissible at all. In England the question would have been left to the Jury. If, however, a second appeal lies, I hold that it should be dismissed. Karamat Husain, J.