Case Law Details
John Thomas Vs Dr. K. Jagdeesan (Supreme Court of India)
A renowned hospital in the Metropolis of Madras (Chennai) has been caricatured in a newspaper as the abattoir of human kidneys for trafficking purposes. When the Director of the Hospital complained of defamation, the publisher of the newspaper sought shelter under the umbrage that the libel is not against the Director personally, but against the hospital only and hence he cannot feel aggrieved. The accused/publisher, who raised the objection before the trial court, on being summoned by the court to appear before it, succeeded in stalling the progress of the trial by clinging to the said contention which the trial magistrate has upheld. But the High Court of Madras disapproved the action of the magistrate and directed the trial to proceed. Hence the accused has come up to this Court by filing the special leave petition. But after hearing the learned senior counsel, who argued for the appellant, we did not find the necessity to wait for the respondent – complainant to reply to those arguments as the appeal is only liable to be dismissed in limine.
The complainant (respondent in this) stated that he is running a hospital as its Director under the name “K.J. Hospital”. He claimed to be the Honorary Overseer Adviser of Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow in UK. His grievance in the complaint is that a news item was published by the “Madras Times” on 21.3.1991 containing highly defamatory imputations against his hospital. The said newspaper is a daily published and circulated by the appellant as its editor. The passage which, according to the complainant, is defamatory to him has been quoted in the complaint. It is extracted below:
“It is stated that the hospital used to stealthily deprive of its patients of one of their kidneys when they were admitted for minor operations. Women who were admitted for caesarian operation had one of their kidneys removed without their knowledge. More than 120 women have so far been affected by this trading in kidneys. It is reported that the kidneys were later exported to Malaysia. The hospital has engaged brokers to the lure in the needy poor to part with one of their kidneys for a hefty sum. The nefarious activity has been going on for many months now.”
So the complaint was filed by the respondent before the Court of Metropolitan Magistrate for the offence under Section 500 of the IPC. The magistrate, who took cognizance of the offence, issued process to the appellant. It seems, the appellant is interested in taking up his defence and contentions only in a piecemeal manner. At the first instance, he approached the High Court for quashing the complaint on the ground that the magistrate ought to have examined all the witnesses for the complainant before issuing the process to the accused. The High Court dismissed his petition and repelled his contention on that score as per an order passed in Crl.O.P. No.2189/93.
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