LAWS(PVC)-1946-4-10

JANARDAN KARANDIKAR Vs. RAMCHANDRA TILAK

Decided On April 18, 1946
JANARDAN KARANDIKAR Appellant
V/S
RAMCHANDRA TILAK Respondents

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is an appeal from the judgment of Mr, Justice Blagden delivered on April 13, 1945, in a suit upon an alleged defamation contained in it newspaper article written by the defendant, who is the appellant in this Court. The article, which is in Marathi, was published on January 21, 1941, in the newspaper Keswri. That it is defamatory of the plaintiff cannot be denied; but the principal ground of defence, and the only one which has been urged in this Court, is that the article was written on a privileged occasion and without malice. The learned trial Judge held, and in my opinion rightly held, that the occasion was privileged, but at the conclusion of his judgment he said: Though in writing what he did, the defendant went, I think, far beyond the limit of what was permissible, I must remember that a verbal battle was in progress in which the plaintiff was distinctly the aggressor. Were this not so, I should feel bound to award really punitive damages. As it is, I think that the figure of Rs. 3,000 meets the case and there will be a decree for the plaintiff for that sum with costs. If I had to assess damages in respect only of the Shylock-Karkarmunda passage, I should award the plaintiff Rs. 1,000.

(2.) It was in defence to a document intituled, "The Public Declaration", attacking the defendant and his co-trustees and which is dated January 8, 1941, and was issued and published by the plaintiff on that day and distributed on subsequent days, and in answer to or avoidance of responsibility for the plaintiff's fast unto death, which was then in its ninth day, that the article with which we are concerned was published.

(3.) Without some knowledge of the background against which the battle of words in which the criminatory article was but a phase, it is impossible to approach this appeal. Mr. Tilak, the father of the plaintiff, was one of the founders of the Indian Home Rule movement and he was and his memory still is held in veneration by a very large number of his fellow countrymen. He was the owner of two newspapers the Maratha published in English and the Kesri published in Marathi, and it was partly through the media of his two papers that Mr, Tilak conveyed his doctrines to the public.