- (1.) THIS is a regular first appeal by the plaintiff Lachhman in a suit for damages for defamation, which has been dismissed by the trial Court.
(2.) THE material facts, out of which this appeal arises, lie in a short compass and may be briefly stated as follows. The parties belong to a village named Kurawad, district Udaipur. The plaintiff is a Panch of the Gram Panchayat Kura-wad. The respondents are 28 in number and of these about half the number are Mahajans and the rest belong to various other communities. The plaintiff's case was that on 18-3-1952, the defendant made a report (Ex. P. 1) to the Station House Officer, police thana Kurawad, which translated in English reads as follows : "it is prayed that the undermentioned 'goondas' are misbehaving and harassing us (the applicants ). On Chait Vadi 3rd and 5th they formed themselves into an assemblage of a number of persons of which they were the leaders and they have treated us very shabbily information whereof has been given to the police from time to time. Our shops have had to be closed. Therefore, please make adequate arrangements, otherwise our life and property is in serious danger. Urgent action is solicited. " The name of the plaintiff was mentioned as one of the seven persons against whom the aforesaid complaint was made. The plaintiffs case further was that the defendants had made the above-mentioned complaint to the Sub-Inspector falsely and maliciously with intent to disgrace the former and lower him in the estimation of the public. Consequently, the plaintiff instituted the present suit in the court of the Civil Judge, Udaipur, for damages amounting to Rs. 10,000/ -. These damages appear" to have been claimed not as special damages but generally.
(3.) THE defendants respondents with some variance (which is not material for the purposes of the present appeal) admitted that they had made the report to the station House Officer, Kurawad. But they contended that they had made the said report out of feelings of self-protection, and with a view to see that adequate arrangements are made for the maintenance of public peace and tranquility in their village. It is in evidence that there was a commotion in this village in the month of March, 1952, on the occasion of the Holi festival. It is admitted that some ancestor of the then Jagirdar of Kurawad had died on the Holi day a few years ago and, therefore the usual festivities which take place on Falgun sudi 15 (which is, the day of the holi), and the following day are postponed in this village to two to three days and the customary festivities are observed on Chait Vadi 3 and a day or two following. It is also in evidence that the defendants who are mostly Mahajans and their friends had observed the Holi ceremonies on Falgun Sudi 15 and Chait Vadi 1st, that is the 11th and the 12th March, 1952, regardless of the aforesaid practice. This piqued the Jagirdar and the friends of the Thikana like the plaintiff. Consequently, the case of the defendants as disclosed by their evidence is that the plaintiff and certain other persons who had been named by them in the report Ex. P-1 had taken out procession on Chait Vadi 3 and Chait Vadi 5th during which they carried the effigies of the defendants Chhaganlal and Pyarchand and gave them shoe-beating while the procession was being carried in the village. The result was that feelings ran very high in the village and there was rioting, and the Mahajans had to close down their shops, and it was in these circumstances that the report Ex. P-1 came to be made to the police. The defendants, therefore, contended that they had no desire to defame the plaintiff or anybody else but that what they had done was in protection of their own interests and for the preservation of peace and tranquillity in their village. The defendants also pleaded that the police had prosecuted six out of the seven persons against whom they had made the complaint, and among these six, the plaintiff was one of the persons who had been challaned. The defendants denied that they had any malice in making the complaint which they did to the police and they prayed that the plaintiff had filed this suit merely to harass them, and, therefore, they also prayed for grant of special damages to them under Sec, 35-A of the C. P. C.;