Indian Kanoon - Search engine for Indian Law

1. This is a case in revision. The Sessions Judge of Saharanpur had before him an appeal by a woman, one Musammat Parwari, so called at any rate. The appellant had been convicted of the offense of defamation and sentenced under Sections 499 and 500 of the Indian Penal Code to two months' rigorous imprisonment, The complaint had been instituted against her by one Chhajju Singh. Chhajju Singh, according to the prosecution, was step-brother of one Musammat Parwari, Rajput by caste, and Musammat Parwari was the wife of Pirthi Singh, also Rajput. Parwari, some two years before the complaint was lodged, had gone to the house of Umrao Singh, her sister's husband. There she fell ill and died on the 21st of June 1916. After her death, Pirthi Singh gave it out that she was still alive and that Umrao Singh's story that she was dead was false, and the woman was really in concealment in Umrao Singh's house. Parsvari and her husband and relations had wanted, so the complainant says, to outcaste him and his family and in order to effect this had put up the appellant, who was in fact a Chamar woman, to pretend to be his wife; that, in pursuance of this conspiracy, the appellant had been induced to go to the Courts at Dahra and to make a false statement to the effect that she was Pirthi Singh's wife and had been kept in seclusion as above mentioned. As a result of this, the complainant, his parents and Umrao Singh have been outlasted. The complaint went on to say that the feelings of the complainant had been further outraged by statements male by the appellant, Those statements were certainly statements, if true, to the prejudice of the complainant and his relations. All these statements were said to have been made by the woman appellant to a Sub-Inspector of Police stationed at Rikhikash and when the charge-sheet was drawn up, the woman was charged with having, on the 26th of February 1915 at Rikhikesh by words spoken to the Sub Inspector, published an imputation of incestuous connection with different persons, knowing that such imputation would harm the reputation of Mustmmat Parwari, if living, and intended, to harm the feelings of the near relatives such as her father and brother. The statements are then set out in the charge sheet and it is added that she had thereby committed an offence punishable under Section 499, read with Section 500 of the Indian Penal Code. The record, as it stood, was, as I painted out in my order of the 2nd of December 1918, so meagre that it was difficult to decide from it the precise circumstances under which the statement of the 26th of February said to have been made by the appellant came into existence. In order to ascertain these circumstances I summoned Sub-Inspector Inderjit Singh, the Sub-Inspector concerned, to ascertain these circumstances as far as possible. His evidence has been recorded and I cannot say that it is at all satisfactory. Taking it as it stands, he says that the statement contained in Exhibit H was a statement made under the authority of Section 154 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1S98. As to the statements contained in Exhibits I and J, he found it difficult to say positively how those statements came to be made. Eventually, however, he deposed that they were statements made in consequence of action taken by him under Section 155 of the Code of Criminal Procedure. He is not a revice in Police work, for he says he has been Sub Inspector for five years but he left it rather doubtful whether he did intentionally and Knowingly act under the authority of Section 155 of the Code or of some authority given him by the Police Manual. If the statements resulted from action taken under Section 154 or under Section 155, they are privileged statements, and as such, should not have been used as evidence at all see Section 162 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, and the case of Manjaya v. Sesha Shetti 11 M. 477 : 1 Weir 586 : 4 Ind. Dec. (N. S.) 332 and also Queen-Empress v. Govinda Pillai 16 M. 235 : 1 Weir 587 : 5 Ind. Dec. (N.S.) 871. The Madras High Court, is very positive and consistent upon the view that statements under these circumstances are' privileged and cannot be made the foundation of a charge of defamation. I do not know what authority the Police Manual may give, but whatever authority it may give if it does give any authority that cannot override the law. It is difficult to understand how the Sub Inspector could have taken these statements at all. The probability is that he took them out of prurient curiosity and not in the course of any investigation made under Chapter XIV of the Code of Criminal Procedure. I mention this, as what I am about to say might otherwise be considered obiter dictum.