TIRUVENGADA MUDALI Vs. TRIPURASUNDARI AMMAL

JUDGEMENT

(1.) In this case the petitioner filed a complaint against three persons charging them with offences of simple hurt and house-trespass under Secs.323 and 448 of the Indian Penal Code. In that complaint he described two of them as being paramours. Thereupon he was charged with defamation and was convicted. The Sessions Judge referred the case to the High Court on the view that the decision in In re Muthuswami Naidu (1912) I.L.R. 37 M. 110 following In re Venkata Reddy (1912) I.L.R. 36 M. 206 : 23 M.L.J. 39 established the position that statements such as that on which the conviction was founded were absolutely privileged. The correctness of the ruling in In re Venkata Reddy (1912) I.L.R. 36 M. 206 : 23 M.L.J. 39 has un-doubtedly been questioned in the Full Bench case, Gopal Naidu V/s. King-Emperor (1922) I.L.R. 46 M. 605 : 44 M.L.J. 655 (F.B.). The learned referring Judges therefore very rightly took the view that the matter should be settled and that a Full Bench should reconsider the question and decide whether In re Venkata Reddy (1912) I.L.R. 36 M. 206 : 23 M.L.J. 39 was rightly decided.

(2.) We do not think that any useful purpose would be served by an exhaustive examination of the authorities such as was made by Mookerjee, Offg. Chief Justice, in Satish Chandra Chakravarti V/s. Ram Doyal De (1920) I.L.R. 48 C. 388. It is not contested that the general trend of the Madras and Bombay authorities is to regard such statements as absolutely privileged and that the Calcutta and Allahabad Courts have taken the opposite view that the privilege is qualified only and should be taken as confined to the exceptions appended to Section 499 of the Indian Penal Code. The Rangoon Court also has recently in MacDonnell v. King-Emperor (1925) I.L.R. 3 Rang. 524 adopted the Calcutta view. Our task is to consider the words of the statute and to say whether it leaves it open to the accused to contend that it is not exhaustive of all the cases of privilege which can be put forward. The suggestion is that the statute only concerned itself with cases of qualified privilege and legislated for them, leaving intact the absolute privilege conferred by the English Common Law on Judges, advocates, parties and witnesses.

(3.) Two propositions appear to us to be indisputable on the facts of the case as stated. The first is that the petitioner cannot bring himself within any of the exceptions to Section 499 for the simple reason that there is a finding against him that the statement that he made was not made in good faith. The only exception to the Indian section under which he could bring himself is the 8 and that expressly lays down that the privilege conferred by it on persons who prefer accusations against others extends only to those who make them in good faith. The second proposition (and the Crown does not contest it) is that, if the Common Law of England is to be held to apply to this case, the action of the petitioner would be absolutely privileged.