In a defamation action, the plaintiff must set out in the plaint the defamatory words and the innuendo, or defamatory meaning, of the words. The plaintiff must also set out the circumstances that rendered the words defamatory and that the persons to whom the words were published knew or understood the words in the defamatory sense.

( 1 ) THIS Rule raises a short but interesting question. It is directed against an order of the learned Subordinate Judge, Second Court, Alipore, refusing the petitioners prayer for rejecting the plaint on the ground that it discloses no cause of action.

( 2 ) THE suit which was filed by the opposite party against the present petitioners was one for mandatory injunction and damages. The suit was instituted on June 27, 1955, and upon the following allegations, inter alia,: (i) That the opposite party was an old employee holding a responsible post under Mackintosh Burn Ltd. of which the petitioners were Directors; (ii) That the opposite party was the Secretary of the (Workers') Union and, on account of his efforts to improve the lot of the workers, he had incurred the displeasure of his employers; and (iii) That, actuated by malice, the petitioners, on false pretext, issued a warning order to the opposite party, threatening him with dismissal; and they also had it circulated amongst the opposite party's co-workers through their agents and lowered him in their estimation and injured his reputation.

( 3 ) THE warning order was in the following terms:"the Directors take a very serious view of the whole affair and you are hereby warned that any incident of the type in future will lead to your dismissal".

( 4 ) THE opposite party claimed that it was wrongful, mischievous and defamatory and prayed for mandatory injunction, directing withdrawal of the order, and also prayed for damages on account of loss of reputation etc.

( 5 ) THE defence was a denial of the plaintiff's material allegations and there was, inter alia, a specific plea that the plaintiff had no cause of action for the suit. Upon that plea, an issue was raised as to whether the plaint "discloses a cause of action", and that issue appears to have been taken up and tried by the court as a preliminary issue in connection with the defendants' application for rejection of the plaint on the ground that it discloses no cause of action.

( 6 ) SO far as mandatory injunction was concerned, the trial court agreed with the de- fence and held that there was no case or cause of action for mandatory injunction.

( 7 ) ON the question of damages, however, for alleged defamation, the court accepted the plaintiff's contention that the plaint contained sufficient averments to furnish a good cause of action for damages. Whether the averments could be proved or not at the trial was a different matter, but the court held that, on the plaint, as it stood, it disclosed a good cause of action for damages for defamation and hence it could not be rejected for want of cause of action, as prayed for by the defendants.

( 8 ) THE defendants' application was, accordingly, rejected by the court and the preliminary issue was apparently answered in the affirmative in favour of the plaintiff. Against this order, the present Rule was obtained by the defendants.

( 9 ) BEFORE the trial court, the arguments covered a wide field, but the scope became very much limited in this Court on account of the attitude, taken up by the learned lawyers, appearing on the two sides. The finding of the trial court that there was no case or cause of action for any mandatory injunction was not challenged by the plaintiff and so the only point that was discussed at the hearing of the rule was whether the trial court was right in holding that the plaint, as it stood, disclosed a good cause of action for damages for defamation. On this point also, the dispute was confined within very narrow limits.

( 10 ) MR. Sen's contention that, in a libel action, it was obligatory on the plaintiff to set out in the plaint the actual defamatory words (together with the innuendo or defamatory meaning thereof, where necessary) was not disputed by Mr. Roy Choudhury. Mr. Roy Choudhury, however, contended that the plaint in the present case did not suffer from any defect on that score. He drew our attention to the warnin