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10.10 Further, the plea of the plaintiff is that defendant could have referred in his reply such error as typographical error. The above said contention stands nowhere as how an error committed by the plaintiff could be affirmed and claimed by the defendant as typographical error when the error itself has been claimed by the plaintiff. Hence, it cannot be said that the defendant has made a defamatory statement against the plaintiff.

10.11 Now coming to the second consideration i.e. publication. The defamatory statement must be published. Submitting reply in legal proceedings by parties against each other is not a publication as such, but it is a privileged statement. The said statement is not available to parties other than parties to the litigation. The said statement is privileged statement which was so laid down in Pandey Surendra Nath Sinha v. Bageshwari Pd. AIR 1961 Pat 164 by the Hon'ble Apex Court, wherein, the Hon'ble Apex Court discussed the law on defamation in full length. The court observed as under:

10.12 Since the above statement is privileged statement and there was no publication as such in a litigation between the parties, therefore, the defendant is entitled to protection of such privileged statement made bonafide by him on such declaration of plaintiff at para no. 3 of her legal notice i.e. Ex. DW1/1.

10.13 Further, the plaintiff has not even any person, to whom the defendant distributed the above statement, which can be said to be publication.

10.14 Apart from the above, regarding the 3 rd essential i.e. proof of special damage, the plaintiff did not lead any evidence at all as to what damage was caused to her due to the abovesaid statement made by the defendant in the leave to defend. She has alleged that her children were facing difficulties in school due to this but during cross- examination, she herself admitted that, "all my children are studying well and scored good results in their respective past examination from time to time." It was further alleged by her that, she has suffered losses in her profession due to the above act of the defendant, however, during cross-examination, in contrary to above, she categorically admitted that, "my income since 2002 has gradually increased from time to time in due course of my business till date."