In order to succeed in a defamation action, the plaintiff must prove that the defendant knew or ought to have known that the defamatory statement would probably be read by some person other than the plaintiff.

N.L.Untwalia, J.

1. This appeal by the defendant raises an interesting question of law. The plaintiff-respondent filed a suit for realisation of Rs. 500.00 as damages for defamation of the plaintiff by the defendant. The case of the plaintiff is that he is a respectable man and a man of substantial means and is held in esteem and regard by the public. He lived in a rented house belonging to the defendant who mostly resides at Sultanpur in U. P.

The plaintiffs son had purchased a house contiguous south of the defendants house and was constructing the same. The defendant filed Title Suit No. 366 of 1948 with regard to some disputes which crept up between the defendant and the plaintiffs son while the latter was constructing his house. The defendant sent a registered notice in Urdu from Sultanpur to the plaintiff at Siwan. The plaintiff, it was said, is not conversant with Urdu script and he, therefore, got the notice read over by one Kurban Ali in presence of several other persons. The notice contained defamatory and false allegations against him and he was very much Pained and surprised at them. The defamatory statement lowered the plaintiff in the estimation of the public and harmed his reputation. He suffered both, mental and physical injuries and, therefore, filed a suit claiming damages, as stated above.

2. The defence taken by the defendant was that the plaintiff had instituted the suit in order to harass the defendant in all possible ways and since this defendant had filed Title Suit No. 366 of 1948, the present suit was filed to put pressure on the defendant. His further case was that the notice in question was a forged and fabricated document and that the plaintiff had not been lowered in the estimation of the public due to the alleged recitals contained in the notice. The suit was not maintainable and was barred by limitation.

3. The learned Additional Munsif, First Court, Siwan, who tried the suit at the first instance, held that the notice (Ext. 1) was sent by the defendant and was addressed to the plaintiff, that the sequence in which the words in question had been used in the notice did not connote defamation, that the circumstances under which the notice had been sent did not go to show that the defendant intended to defame the plaintiff and that the plaintiff himself was responsible for giving publication to the contents of the notice. In that view of the matter he held that the defendant was not liable for the alleged publication and the suit was dismissed.

4. On appeal, the learned Subordinate judge, Second Court, Chapra, has reversed the decision of the trial court & has awarded a sum of RS. 250.00 by way of damages to the plaintiff. The learned Subordinate Judge has held that the notice (Ext. 1) was written by the defendant and contained defamatory statement and that the plaintiff was defamed by the defendant by sending a notice in a registered cover from Sultanpur in U. P. to Siwan. On the question of publication he seems to be of the opinion that since the letter or the notice in question was sent by the defendant in Urdu script to the plaintiff who does not know Urdu, therefore, he had to get the notice read over by a person who was examined as P. W. 5 in the case in the court premises in presence of several persons. He held -- "It is a well known principle of Torts that the publication of the defamation is complete as soon as the letter containing it is posted in a post office." On these findings the court of appeal below seems to be of the opinion that the publication of the defamatory words was there and the defendant was, therefore, liable to pay damages to the plaintiff.

5. Learned counsel for the appellant did not challenge before me, and rightly, the finding of the courts below that the letter or the notice in question had been written by the defendant-appellant and in Urdu script to the plaintiff-respondent. The finding of the lower appellate court that the plaintiff does not know Urdu coul