1. This Criminal Application filed under Section 482 of the Cri.P.C. prays for quashing and setting aside the process issued against the applicant by the learned Judicial Magistrate, First Class at Pune in Criminal Case No.1912 of 1997 and while admitting this application, by way of interim relief, the proceedings in the said Criminal Case were stayed by this court vide order dated 6/3/1998.

2. The applicant is the Chairman of the Indian Express Group and also Managing Editor of a Marathi daily by name "Loksatta". The said newspaper has more than one editions, as at present, namely, Mumbai, Nagpur, Pune, Ahmednagar and Delhi and each of these editions has a separate Resident Editor. All the editions have at the apex level an Editor over and above the individual Resident Editors. On or about 10/12/1997 the applicant received the summons (without a copy of the complaint) to appear on 19/12/1997 before the learned JMFC, A.C. Court, at Pune in Criminal Case No. 1912 of 1997. The said case was filed by the present respondent no.2 on or about 16/7/1997 and on verification, the learned Magistrate had issued process under Section 500 read with Section 34 of IPC.

3. It was stated in