Judgment

SHELAT, J.:- These appeals, founded on special leave, are directed against the judgment of the learned Single Judge of the High Court of Madras dismissing the applications filed by the appellants for quashing charges under Ss. 500 and 501 of the Penal Code framed by the Presidency Magistrate, Madras. The common question raised in all these appeals is whether the respondent (the original complainant) was an aggrieved person competent to file the said complaints within the meaning of S. 198 of the Code of Criminal Procedure read with S. 499, Explanation (2) of the Penal Code.

2. The complaint came to be filed in the following circumstances:

The Dravida Kazhagam, a party having a platform for social reforms, has, according to counsel for the respondent, a membership of about 4000 persons in Madras city and elsewhere. The aims and objects of the party are to bring about social reforms and in particular to eradicate certain customs and practices, which, according to its promoters, are sheer superstitions. The party sponsored and organised a conference, which held its sessions on January 23 and 24, 1971. The conference passed a number of resolutions, the one relevant for these appeals was, as translated in English by the High Court, as follows:

"It should not be made an offence for a person s wife to desire another man."

The object of this resolution, according to the respondent, was to achieve total emancipation of women and to establish absolute equality in social life between men and women.

3. The appellants are and were at the material time the editors and publishers of three daily newspapers, the Dinmani, the Hindu and the Indian Express, all printed and published in Madras. In the issues of January 25 and 26, 1971 there appeared in the Hindu, as also in the ther two papers, a news item under the caption "Demonstration against the obscene Tableau" in which among other things was published the following:

"The Conference passed a resolution requesting the Government to take suitable steps to see that coveting another man s wife is not made an offence under the Indian Penal Code."

The news item emanated from a report from a correspondent, dated January 24, 1971. The news item reported that about 300 persons had staged a black flag demonstration against the procession taken out in connection with the said conference in which tableau alleged to be obscene and depicting certain Hindu deities and mythological figures formed part. The processionists shouted anti-God slogans, which were replied to by the demonstrators with counter slogans. The news item further reported that E. V. Ramaswami Naicker, the leader of the Dravida Kazhagam, seated in a tractor, was at the rear of the procession. He also presided over the said conference which was inaugurated by one G. D. Naidu. The respondent s case was that what came to be published in the said news item was not the actual resolution passed by the conference, but the reverse of it. But the news item stated that it was the conference and not the Dravida Kazhagam which had passed the resolution set out in it as aforesaid.

4. On January 28, 1971, the respondent, signing as the chairman of the reception committee of the said conference, called upon the editor of the Hindu to publish a correction and clarification stating that the resolution published in that daily was a distorted version of the resolution actually passed by the conference, that the resolution passed by the conference was that "it should not be made an offence for a person s wife to desire another man". and not that a man coveting another man s wife should not be an offence, and that those who were aware of the opinions of the said E. V. Ramaswami Naicker would find that the resolution was in keeping with his views, namely, that marriage was a contract terminable at the instance of either party and not an interminable sacrament, and lastly, that the resolution was intended to highlight the disabilities of women which prevented t