K R MANIKAM MUDALIAR Vs. KUMMALANGUTTAY MUNUSWAMI NAIDU

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This appeal arises out of a suit for damages for malicious prosecution.

(2.) The question in the present case is, whether the defendant "was directly responsible for any charge at all being made against the plaintiff:" Gaya Prasad v. Bhagat Singh 30 A. 525 : 12 C.W.N. 1017 : 10 Bom. L.R. 1080 : 8 C.L.J. 337 : 5 A.L.J. 665 : 35 I.A. 189. Persons who have made the original report of the alleged crime knowing it to be false, have been made by the Privy Council to "abide the consequences of their misconduct" notwithstanding that the prosecution was not technically conducted by them," but by the Police.

(3.) The facts in Gaya Prasad v. Bhagat Singh 30 A. 525 : 12 C.W.N. 1017 : 10 Bom. L.R. 1080 : 8 C.L.J. 337 : 5 A.L.J. 665 : 35 I.A. 189. were that the Sub-Inspector instituted the charge at the instigation of the defendants and not of his own motion (page 533) and the defendants had concocted and produced false evidence to get the plaintiff charged with the crime (page 532). 3. The instigation to prosecute apparently consisted in making the original report upon which the prosecution was ultimately based, and in giving a list of the persons containing the plaintiff s name and saying that the chief cause of the riot was the plaintiff. In the conduct of the case the defendants took the principal part both before the Police and in the Magistrate s Court and instructed the prosecution Counsel that the plaintiff joined the riot, which the Magistrate found had never taken place; moreover on the day of the alleged riot the plaintiff was ill at Lucknow.