JAGAT NARAIN Vs. SUBEDAR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is a defendant's appeal arising out of a suit for damages for defamation. The undisputed facts are that the defendant is the mukhia of Tillage Bisalpur. About the 1 or 2 October, one Ishura Ban-jara, who had been in the service of the plaintiff, disappeared from the village. Nothing was heard of him for a week or More, and his father was in great distress about him. The mukhia went to the Superintendent of Police and made a report about the disappearance. At the bidding of the Superintendent, this report was taken down in writing, and it is in this that the defamation complained of is contained.

(2.) The report recited that it was rumoured that Ishura had stolen some gram belonging to the plaintiff, and that the plaintiff with two other men had beaten him till he fell down senseless. Since that time Ishura had disappeared, and it was rumoured in the village that he was dead. The mukhia had-further been informed that the missing youth's parents had been warned to make no report on peril of a beating. He stated that he himself had made a search in the village, but could find no traces of the missing man, and he asked that inquiry should be made.

(3.) The plaintiff brought this suit claiming Rs. 1,000 as special damages.