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Lastly, Complainant denied all the suggestions of Ld. Counsel for the Accused pertaining to Complainant himself being the owner of J.K. Jute Mills as well as the suggestion that no case of defamation is made out against the accused on the basis of any of the complaints written by him as the same were made to public authorities by the accused in the capacity of the public servant.

With this, the cross examination of the Complainant was closed on 14.12.2018.

7. Thereafter, several opportunities were given to the Complainant to bring further evidence in support of his case, however, Complainant did not avail of the opportunities and eventually on 13.09.2019, Complainant's evidence was closed by the order of the Court and the matter was listed for examination of the Accused u/s 313 Cr.P.C.

Thus, it is indispensable for the Complainant to lead evidence to show, at the outset, that his character has been lowered in the eyes of a third person.

12. Coming now to the facts of this case, in the first place, it is pertinent to mention that even though complainant has filed a case of defamation against the Accused, in his entire complaint or at point of time during his entire testimony in the court he has not mentioned name of even one person in whose eyes his reputation got tarnished. Complainant has merely mentioned generally that his reputation had got lowered in the eyes of government officers, bank officials etc. but not mentioned their names, even after specific question being put in this regard during his cross- examination.

13. Further, no other witness has been got examined by the Complainant in his post-summoning evidence to establish his case apart from himself. As already mentioned above, reputation is not one thinks of himself, it is what others think of you and when no third person has come to depose and not even named in the deposition of the Complainant who can testify that indeed in his eyes the reputation of the Complainant got lowered, proving of the case of defamation becomes highly questionable. In its recent judgment titled as Nakkheeran Gopal and Ors. vs. Rajendran [MANU/TN/2379/2022] pointing out the importance of an independent witness in a defamation case it was held by Hon'ble High Court of Madras that:

Aditya Sarda vs. Arjun Singh

8. Explanation 4 is relevant here. What is important to make out the case of defamation as per Explanation 4 is that, only if a person's reputation, character and credit is directly or indirectly, in the estimation of others, is lowered, the offence of defamation would be attracted. As rightly pointed out by the learned counsel for the petitioners, the reading of the complaint allegations shows that there is no pleading as to whether respondent's reputation, character and credit is harmed in the estimation of others. Most importantly, the respondent has not cited any witness to speak about his reputation being dented in the estimation of others on reading the article referred in the complaint. Admittedly, no witness was examined to speak about this aspect.