EMPEROR Vs. ABDOOL WADOOD AHMED

JUDGEMENT

(1.) In this case we have been obliged to await an officialised translation of the pamphlet which forms the subject of the charge, exceptions having been taken to the accuracy of that which accompanied the record. The charge against the accused is one under Section 500, Indian Penal Code, of defamation. The alleged defamatory imputations are contained in a pamphlet which the present appellant admittedly wrote as an answer to certain criticisms written and circulated by the complainant on discourses compiled by a religious teacher designated in the pamphlet as the Khutba.

(2.) As the appellant does not disown the authorship of the defamatory pamphlet, the only question which arises in this appeal is whether the passages cited in the charge, amount to defamation. The main contention of the appellant's counsel is that-whatever imputations are made in the passages cited in the charge, fall within the 3rd, 6 and 9 exceptions to Section 499 of the Indian Penal Code, that is to say, it is contended that those passages either express an opinion in good faith respecting the character of the complainant so far as it appears in his conduct touching a public question and the merits of the Fatwa or criticism published by him and the further, or an imputation made in good faith, in reply to attack, for the protection of the person attacked, or for the public good. It is also contended for the appellant that the meaning and application of various passages in the pamphlet have been distorted and misrepresented by the prosecution, Other through incorrect translation or the perverse suggestion of constructions which the appellant did not intend and could not have intended those passages to bear. The Advocate General, who supported the conviction, relied on Thomas V/s. Bradbury, Agnew & Co., Limited [1906] 2 K.B. 627 as showing that the right of fair comment set up for the defence could not avail to protect malicious attack under the cloak of criticism. Fisher V/s. Clement (1830) 10 B. & C. 472 was cited by the Advocate General, as showing that the ambiguity of the language used, would not avail the accused whatever his alleged intention, if the actual tendency of that language was defamatory.

(3.) With reference to the case of Thomas V/s. Bradbury, Agnew & Co., Limited(1) it is to be noted that the question there raised and determined was whether in an action for libel, when the defence is that the writing complained of is fair comment, evidence that the defendant was actuated by malice towards the plaintiff was admissible.