SITA RAM Vs. THAKUR PRASAD

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is a plaintiff's appeal arising out of a suit for malicious prosecution. Mr. Mehdi has said everything that could possibly be said on behalf of the appellants, but when I find that the Privy Council have laid down in four very clear propositions what a plaintiff must prove before he can be successful in a suit for damages for malicious prosecution, I decline to accept the position that I have power to whittle away the force of those propositions by holding that I am entitled to add to them other considerations-those conditions being quoted to me as having been approved by this or the other Judge in some particular set of circumstances. Here the first two propositions laid down by their Lordships of the Privy Council at p. 457 of Balbhaddar Singh V/s. Budri Sah A.I.R. 1926 P.C. 46 are admitted to exist. The third thing which the plaintiff has to prove is: That the prosecution was instituted against him without any reasonable and probable cause.

(2.) The circumstances of every case and the conditions of the judgment by which the plaintiff was acquitted must vary infinitely in every case. The burden was on the plaintiffs to prove that the prosecution was without any reasonable and probable cause. Both Courts have found that the plaintiffs have failed to establish the absence of such cause. That is in my view a finding of fact and I could not possibly disturb it without a detailed examination and weighing of all the evidence from the time the report was made to the time the original case was decided, and presumably also all the other evidence that was led in this case.

(3.) Mr. Mehdi contends that it is a mixed question of law and fact. That is a contention which in one sense may be raised in almost every case. I am unable to hold that there is any question of law or a hint of any question of law arising in the decision of the simple issue: Had the defendants reasonable cause or not for bringing the case.