( 1 ) BY invoking the jurisdiction of this Court under Section 482 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, this application takes an exception to the order of the learned J. M. F. C. , Nagpur (2nd Court), directing to issue process under Section 500 read with Section 34 of Indian Penal Code against all the applicants/accused in Cri. Complaint Case No. 93 of 1993 and the applicants herein sought the relief that the criminal prosecution against them at the instance of respondent no. 1 be quashed.

( 2 ) BRIEF facts are required to be stated as under : the applicant no. 1 is the Chairman-cum-Managing Director, applicant no. 2 is the executive Editor and applicant no,3 happens to be Printer and Publisher of Daily Lokmat groups of Newspaper. A news item was published on 6-3-1999 in daily Lokmat samachar newspaper in which certain imputations were made against respondent no. 1 and, therefore, the latter had instituted a criminal complaint for the offence punishable under Section 500 of Indian Penal Code. The learned Magistrate directed to issue process against all the accused under Section 500 read with Section 34 of Indian Penal Code.

( 3 ) MR. Daga, learned counsel, for the applicants contended that the owner and the publisher of the newspaper are not liable for the news item published in the newspaper. He contended that perusal of the news item would reveal that the case is covered by exception 4th to Section 499 of Indian Penal code. He contended that the Lokmat newspaper Ltd. is not a firm and it is a public limited company and is not liable for any manner. The contents of the news item that the other partners of the firm "m/s. Somras distillers" (of which the applicant no. 1 is also a partner) started campaign of vilification against respondent no. 1 and their intention was malafide, per se are not defamatory. He contended that the contents in the news item that the petitioners are dancing to the tune of the partners is not substantiated by the news item, also is not defamatory unless it is shown as to who are those persons and how they managed all the petitioners for publication of defamatory article, has not been explained in the complaint. All those persons who are responsible for printing and publication of news item have not been made an accused. It is contended that respondent no. 1 has admitted in the complaint about the fact of pending criminal case against Mr. Walia in the court at Madhya Pradesh. He has further admitted that Mr. Walia was released on bail after his arrest and after getting bail from the court he remained absent in the court proceedings and that a warrant was also issued by the Court against him. It is therefore submitted by the learned counsel for the applicants that the contents of the news item punishable by the applicants is not per se defamatory at all because the news in question is based on the records of the police as well as of the Court and the same is true and correct.

( 4 ) HE further contended that the learned Magistrate has committed an error in directing to issue process against the applicants in absence of any allegation that the accused had any role to play in the publication of the news item and in absence of any particulars of conspiracy of common intention, the private criminal complaint filed for the offence punishable under Section 500 read with section 34 of Indian Penal Code is liable to be quashed. He, therefore, contended that no prima facie case has been made out against the applicants for the offence punishable under Section 500 read with section 34 of Indian Penal Code and the criminal prosecution launched at the instance of respondent no. 1 may kindly be quashed.

( 5 ) IN support of these submissions, the learned counsel for the applicants relied on a decision of this Court in Samir Jain s/o. Ashok Kumar Jain Vs. Abhijit Chavan - 1996 (3) ALL MR 93 wherein this Court has observed that the law is well settled that an owner of a newspaper cannot be made accused for defam