AN SINGH Vs. BHAGAT SINGH

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is a second appeal by the defendant in a suit for damages for an alleged malicious prosecution. The defendant-appellant prosecuted the 15 plaintiffs, respondents in the Criminal Court on charges of criminal trespass, mischief and criminal, intimidation. The Criminal Court discharged the plaintiffs without framing a charge holding that the evidence produced by the complainant to substantiate his complaint did not justify the framing of a charge. Thereafter the plaintiffs brought a suit for damages against the defendant alleging, that the complaint had been lodged against them on account of enmity without any adequate cause. The defence was that the allegations in the complaint were true. The main issue framed by the trial Court of the Subordinate Judge, Pali, district Ranikhet, was in these terms, "whether the defendant prosecuted the plaintiffs without reasonable or probable cause." The plaintiffs examined themselves and produced six witnesses in support of their case that the complaint against them was untrue and without reasonable and probable cause. The defendant did not go into the witness- box, but produced one witness and the village patwari in support of his case. The trial Court proceeded on the basis that "the whole question hangs upon whether the substance of the accusation against the plaintiffs was false and whether the defendant knew it was false" and after discussing the evidence of the plaintiffs and their witnesses came to the following conclusion: I cannot find positively that the criminal accusation made against the plaintiffs was a false one. There is certainly no good evidence that they did commit any crime but it is one thing to prove a crime in a Criminal Court and another to show that the accusation had no reasonable or probable cause. In fact I find there was reasonable and probable cause for the accusation. There may very well have been malice but malice alone has no effect where there was reasonable or probable cause; give your enemy a chance to prove you have committed a crime and he may do so.

(2.) On the above finding the suit of the plaintiff was dismissed. The plaintiffs then appealed to the District Judge who accepted the appeal in part and gave a decree for Rs. 230 with proportionate costs. The basis of the decision of the lower Appellate Court was that the burden of proof in this case rested on the defendant and he having failed to discharge it and having failed to prove that the complaint was true, the claim for damages should be decreed against him. The following quotation from the judgment of the lower Appellate Court will indicate the point of view with which that Court considered the case: In this case An Singh, defendant, had complained that he was seeing all what the accused were doing. His complaint was based on his own personal knowledge and not on any information received from anybody else. No question of reasonable or probable cause arises in this case. The plaintiffs being discharged by the Criminal Court, starts the presumption in their favour.

(3.) Then the learned Additional District Judge proceeded to consider the evidence of the defendant and at the end remarks as follows: The defendant has thus utterly failed to prove that his complaint was true and it was improperly dismissed. It appears quite unlikely to me that the plaintiffs may have taken their womenfolk for committing such offences as alleged by the defendant. I hold that the complaint has not been proved to be true. Malice under such circumstances ought to be presumed. It is admitted that there is enmity between the parties. I therefore hold the complaint was made maliciously and was not true.