LOKESHWAR SINGH PANTA, J.

1. Leave granted.

2. Manzar Sayeed Khan and Vindd Hansraj Goyal have filed these two appeals against the common order dated 06.05.2004 of a Division Bench of the High Court of Judicature at Bombay in Criminal Writ Petition No.280 of 2004 and 370 of 2004. By the impugned order, the High Court vacated the interim order granted on 23.02.2004 and directed the Crime Branch of the State of Maharashtra to complete the investigation in FIR No.10 of 2004 registered at the Deccan Police Station, Pune, against the appellants and author of the book titled "Shivaji Hindu King in Islamic India" under Sections 153, 153A and 34 of the Indian Penal Code [for short IPC].

3. The brief facts in both these appeals are practically identical.

3.1 Manzar Sayeed Khan, appellant herein, is a constituted Attorney of the Oxford University Press India, having been appointed on 21.06.2001 for a period of three years or for so long as he is employed as the Managing Director of the Oxford University Press India, which is a department of the University of Oxford, a legal entity with charitable status. It furthers the Universitys objective of excellence in research, scholarship and education, by publishing worldwide in Oxford, New York, Auckland, Bangkok, Buenos Aires, Cape Town; Chennai, Dar-es-Salaam, Delhi, Hong Kong, Istanbul, Karachi, Kolkata, Kuala Lumpur, Madrid, Melbourne, Mexico City, Mumbai, Nairobi, Sao Paulo, Shanghai, Taipei, Tokyo, Toronto, etc. The Oxford University Press India entered into an agreement for five years with the Oxford University Press, USA, for publishing in India a paper bound book entitled "Shivaji : Hindu King in Islamic India" authored by Prof. James W. Laine, a Professor of Religious Studies, Macalester College, USA, on 28.05.2003. The said book was originally published by the Oxford University Press, USA. As per the terms of the agreement, the Oxford University Press, India agreed to reprint the book without any changes or deletions. In all, 803 copies of the book were published, i.e., 488 copies in June and 315 copies in October 2003. The book was released in July 2003. 215 copies had been sold in July, 25 copies in August, 29 copies in September, 52 copies in October and 19 copies in November from the records available from the States of Maharashtra, Gujarat and Karnataka.

3.2 The Oxford University Press, India and the appellants had received a letter on 10.11.2003 from four Historians whereby the publisher and the author had been asked to retract the objectionable statement complained .of and tender an apology. The Oxford University Press, India through appellant Manzar Sayeed Khan, expressed regrets for the said statement and informed the objectors that instructions had been issued to all its offices in India to immediately withdraw all copies of the book from circulation. The copies of the letters dated 10.11.2003 and 21.11.2003 are annexed with the appeals and marked as Annexure P-3(Colly.). It is the case of the appellants that sometime after withdrawal of the book from circulation, the appellants learnt that a mob at Pune had blackened the face of a Sanskrit Scholar, Shri Shashikant Bahulkar whose name appeared in the acknowledgement of the book, having helped the author Prof. James W. Laine, by providing him with some information during his visit to Pune. This incident was widely reported in the press. Prof. James W. Laine was pained by the unforeseen incident. On 28.12.2003, he sent a fax apologizing for the mistake, if any, committed in writing the passage and further stated that he only was responsible for the said statement written in the book, and the publisher was not at all responsible for the same. On 05.01.2004, a mob of 100 to 125 persons allegedly belonging to the Shambhaji Brigade ransacked the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute (BORI), Pune, and destroyed 18,000 books and 30,000 rare manuscripts. This incident was also widely reported in the press.

3.3 Prof. James W. Laine had g