TALANGARE MAMMUNHI Vs. PABBUL RAHIMAN

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This revision case has been filed by one Talangare Mammunhi against the judgment of the Additional First Class Magistrate of South Kanara acquitting accused 1 who was charged under Section 500, Indian Penal Code. The petitioner who filed the complaint out of which this revision case arises is a landlord and merchant residing in Talangara in Kasargod taluk. The respondent (accused 1 in the lower Court) is a merchant of Kasargod. The defamation is said to consist in the publication in a Malayalam newspaper called "Chandrika" dated 5 July 1946 of a notice (Ex. P-2) in the following terms: Poyakkara Abdul Rahiman of Theruvath, Kasaragod hereby gives notice as follows: Khan Bahadur Mahammad Sehamnad Sahab, Talangare Mamunhi Sahib on one side and myself on the other, have been at loggerheads owing to several differences. Both of them are rich and influential and they have as their partisans ex-potailShekali, Potail Mahammad Kunhi, T. Hassan Kutti, Kapi Abdul Khander, Methale Mammunhi, Thurthi Moidiu Kunhi, Ahmad Master. I apprehend that the first named two persona with the collaboration of the others aforesaid will attempt in some way or other to endanger my life. For this reason, I have been obliged to be very wary while going about at night. In such circumstances, I am notifying to concerned authorities and to the public that it will be my conviction that if I should be the victim of a sudden tragedy or calamity the above-named persons should be considered as the cause. There can be no doubt that the notice is prima facie defamatory. It contains the imputation that the persons mentioned therein, including the complainant who examined himself as P.W. 1 in the Court below, were conspiring to do accused 1 bodily injury if not to take away his life, that he was consequently afraid to go out at night, and that he wanted the public to know that if any harm befell him the persons responsible would be those named. In short, what is alleged is that those persons were concerting measures to commit a serious criminal offence, and that they were capable of committing such an offence. The Additional First Class Magistrate was of the opinion that the matter was defamatory. In fact it is not possible to maintain the contrary.

(2.) The fact of publication is not in dispute; nor is the authorship of the notice. The "Chandrika paper" hag admittedly a wide circulation in Malabar and in Kasargod taluk.

(3.) The reasons which induced the Magistrate to acquit accused l are expressed none too clearly. The following sentences extracted from his judgment perhaps contain the reasons that weighed with him. The Magistrate first puts to himself the question, whether the accused by the publication of Ex. P-2 intended to harm the reputation of the complainant or that the accused knew or had reason to believe that it would do so. If the matter is defamatory, this question, as it is worded, can only have an affirmative answer. In considering the evidence under this question, however, the Magistrate observes that it cannot be said that he (the complainant) had not given any room for accused 1 to think about him in the manner it has been stated in Ex. P-2.