( 1 ) THIS revision petition raises an important question of law, viz. , whether in a summons case the personal appearance of an accused can be dispensed with at the stage of recording his plea to the substance of accusation read out to him as laid down in S. 251, Cr P. C. (for short the Code.)

( 2 ) THE facts germane to the decision of this question succinctly are that the petitioners - Nihal Singh, Parkash Joshi and S. K. Kohli were at the relevant time Editor-in-Chief, Editor and Publisher of a reputed daily English newspaper indian Express . On 4th Nov. 1981 newspaper published a news item in its Delhi edition captioned "congress (I) Leader Blocks Checking of Food Stuff". The report, inter alia, mentioned that the respondent-Arjan Das ; prevented a team of Delhi Administration officials led by Miss Khiangte, as IAS officer, from checking food samples. On the next following day, viz. , 5th Nov. 1981 the said newspaper carried a further news item titled "police Case against Arjun Dass". The said report extracted passages from the FIR lodged by Miss Khiangte as also an inspection note which was sent by her to the department. Feeling incensed over the said reports the respondent in

Click Here to Read the rest of this document