Misra, J.

1. This application in revision arises in the following circumstance: Shri Krishna Ballabh Eahay, Revenue Minister, Government of Bi-har, instituted a complaint against the petitioner, who happens to be the chief editor of a daily newspaper at Patna, known as Navarashtra, in the court of a magistrate at Hazaribagh alleging that there was a defamatory publication in that newspaper concerning the complainant which lowered him in the estimation of the public, for which the editor was liable to be punished under Sec. 500, Penal Code. The case was transferred from Hazaribagh to Patna under the orders of this Court and placed before Mr. S.C. Gupta, Judicial Magistrate, for trial. The trial was duly taken up, and while the complainant was under cross-examination, the defence lawyer put certain questions to the complainant in respect of his general reputation with a view to eliciting that the general reputation of the complainant was such that the petitioner committed no offence in publishing the correspondence in question respecting the case against one Zahur Ali, yarn importer, whose house at Ranchi was raided by the police on 16-5-1951. It is unnecessary to state the d