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3. At common law it is not actionable to say of a man that you suspect him of a crime, at any rate, in the absence of special damage or unless the observation be made with reference to his business See Buller's Nisi Prius 1200, Harrison v. King (1817) 4 Price, 46, Tozer v. Mash ford (1851) 6 Ex. 539, and Simmons v. Mitchell (1880) 6 Appeal Cases, 156, a decision of the Privy Council on appeal from the Windward Islands. In Parvathi v. Mannar (1884) I.L.R. 8 Mad. 175. Sir Charles Turner, C.J. and Muthuswami Aiyar, J., held that the common law rule as to special damage being necessary to support an action for slander except in certain cases, was inapplicable in India and the case has been argued before us as one of privilege. Justification has not been pleaded. Taking it then to be defamatory to say that a person is suspected of having committed an offence, I think the person against whom the offence is alleged to have been committed must have a qualified privilege to discuss the case mentioning his suspicions with people who may be in a position to throw light on it, and that the privilege has not been exceeded in the case of the two publications of the words actually charged which are merely words of suspicion. The case appears to me to come within the wellknown rule laid down by Parke, B. in Toogood v. Spyring (1834) 1 C.M. and Rule 181 at p. 193, which has been approved in so many cases and recently by the highest tribunal, and may be looked to for guidance in the absence of any decision more closely in point. " In general, an action lies for the malicious publication of statements which are false in fact, and injurious to the character of another, (within the well-known limits as to verbal slander), and the law considers such publication as malicious, unless it is fairly made by a person in the discharge of a public or private duty, whether legal or moral, or in the conduct of his own affairs in matters where his interest is concerned. In such cases, the occasion prevents the inference of malice, which the law draws from unauthorized communications, and affords a qualified defence depending on the absence of actual malice. If fairly warranted by any reasonable occasion or exigency and honestly made, such communications are protected for the common convenience and welfare of society; and the law has not restricted the right to make them within any narrow limits." Here the communication was in my opinion made by the defendant " in the conduct of his own affairs in matters where his interest was concerned " within the meaning of the rule, and was therefore privileged in the absence of actual malice, which in my opinion has no been proved. It has been argued that the communication to the two superintendents could not be privileged because there was no common interest, that is to say, that it did not matter to them whether the defendant was poisoned or not. Happily this contention appears to be erroneous in law. Statements made to protect the interest of the speaker, and statements made to protect a common interest form distinct heads of privilege, and are so dealt with in Arts. 36 and 37 of the most recent edition of Sir Hugh Eraser's Law of Libel and Slander, 5th Edn., pp. 226 and 228. In my opinion the case comes within the former head of privilege and malice has not been proved.