MOHAN LAL Vs. RAM CHARAN

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Notices issued to the opposite side have not been received back, but the Assistant Government Advocate is present, so I have proceeded with the hearing of the application. One Mohan Lal, a Lohar, complained against the opposite parties, under Section 499, I.P.C., on the ground that at the time of a feast of the brotherhood the accused persons declared that the complainant had been outcasted and was not one fit to sit down at the feast with the other members of the brotherhood. The Magistrate of the trial Court, who appears from the manner in which his order is recorded, to have been too much in a hurry, dismissed the case. There is no such expression in the Criminal Procedure Code as the dismissal of a case. If the Magistrate had been in less hurry and better cognizant of his responsible duty as a Magistrate, he would possibly have said that he dismissed the complaint. It is astonishing to me that a Hindu Magistrate, who must be well acquainted with the terrors of caste, should say that there was no case worth consideration when an imputation had been made that a certain person was out of caste. The complaint is dismissed under Section 95, which declares that nothing is an offence by reason of its causing harm so slight that no person of ordinary sense and temper would complain of such harm. These provisions do not apply to the imputation made by the accused person if it was really made. Among Hindus it would cause the gravest harm to allege that a man was out of caste. If this was believed a Lohar would have to give a feast to his brotherhood to come back into caste.

(2.) The learned Judge, in revision, admitted that the words used were in themselves of a defamatory nature. He then goes on to say: The complaint shows, however, that Mohan Lal's character was in fact not lowered in the estimation of others.

(3.) It is difficult to understand where the learned Judge obtained this information, because it is not contained either in the complaint, or in the complainant's statement. Possibly, though he does not say so, the learned Judge was thinking of Expl. 4, Section 499 which says: No imputation is said to harm a person's reputation unless that imputation directly or indirectly in the estimation of others, lowers the moral or intellectual character of that person, or lowers the character of that person in respect of his caste.