Abhijit Pawar vs Hemant Madhukar Nimbalkar on 14 December, 2016
(ii) Second argument of the appellant was that there is no vicarious liability
in criminal defamation and a person can be held liable only for his own
act where he has the necessary mens rea, i.e., criminal mind. It was
submitted that A-1 was, in fact, placed in the same position as A-2 and,
therefore, the High Court should have quashed the process against A-1
as well, on the parity of reasoning adopted in the case of A-2.
To buttress this submission, the learned counsel took aid of the judgment
of this Court in Maharashtra State Electricity Distribution Co. Ltd. Vs.
Datar Switchgear Ltd.3 laying emphasis, in particular, on para 13 of the
said judgment which reads as under:-