JUDGMENT

NATARAJAN, J.:— A peculiar feature of this appeal by special leave is that it is not. an appeal against conviction or against acquittal but one preferred by a prosecution witness for expunction of several highly derogatory remarks made against him by a learned Judge of the High Court of Orissa while allowing Criminal Appeal No. 31 of 1982 on the file of the High Court of Orissa. Shri Niranjan Patnaik, the appellant before us was examined as P. W. 8 in the trial of T. R. Case No. 6 of 1980 on the file of the Special Judge (Vigilance), Sambalpur against the first respondent. The trial ended in conviction against the first respondent and when the appeal filed by him came to be heard by the High Court the appellant had become a Cabinet Minister in the State of Orissa. On account of the disparaging remarks made by the Appellate Judge the appellant tendered his resignation and demitted office for maintaining democratic traditions. It is in that background this appeal has come to be preferred.

2. Pursuant to a trap laid by the Vigilance Police on the complaint of the appellants Manager, Gopi Nath Mohanty (P. W. 2) the first respondent was arrested on 26-4-79 for having accepted a