The main legal point established in the given judgment is that a suit for defamation may not be maintainable if the publication is based on the contents of the FIR and the act of the plaintiff in dragging the defendants to an alien place may be considered an abuse of the process of the Court.

RAJIV SAHAI ENDLAW, J.

CM Nos. 23671-23672/2017 (both for exemptions)

1. Allowed, subject to just exceptions.

2. The applications are disposed of.

CM (M) No. 687/2017 & CM No. 23670/2017 (for stay)

3. This petition under Article 227 of the Constitution of India impugns the order dated 4th March, 2017 of the Additional District Judge (ADJ) of dismissal of the application filed by the petitioner/defendant for deletion of his name as defendant in a suit filed by the respondent no. 1/plaintiff for recovery of damages for defamation.

4. The counsel for the respondent no. 1/plaintiff appears on advance notice and considering the nature of the controversy, the counsels have been heard at length.

5. The respondent no. 1/plaintiff Frankffin Aviation Services Pvt. Ltd. is carrying on business of imparting education in vocational training in the field of aviation industry.

6. The respondents no. 6 and 7 viz. Rahul Haresh Bhatia and Haresh Bhatia, residents of Pune, approached the Police with a complaint of the respondent no. 1/plaintiff having cheated the respondents no. 6 and 7 as well as other students by misrepresenting that the respondent no. 1/plaintiff was entitled to impart education and confer a qualification when in fact the respondent no. 1/plaintiff was not entitled to. An FIR was registered against the respondent No. 1/plaintiff and its officials.

7. The petitioner herein, an Assistant Police Inspector in Maharashtra Police was the Investigation Officer (IO) of the said FIR. On enquiry, I am told that though charges were framed by the concerned Court at Pune in the said FIR but the Sessions Court, Pune in a revision petition preferred by one of the accused persons has set aside the order framing charge and directed the Court concerned to re-hear on framing of charge.

8. The respondent no. 1/plaintiff instituted the suit from which this petition arises, in this Court (and which has since, on change of pecuniary jurisdiction, been transferred to the District Court) and not in the Courts at Pune, for recovery of damages for defamation qua certain news articles published in the newspapers Times of India, Mumbai Mirror, Pune Mirror and Bangalore Mirror of the respondents no. 2 to 5 viz. Bennett Coleman & Co. Ltd. Nidheesh Tyagi, Meenal Baghel and K.R. Srinivasan herein. In the said suit, besides the respondents no. 6 and 7, at whose instance the FIR against the respondent no. 1/plaintiff and its officials had been registered, the petitioner who was the IO and Ms. Sona Pardasani, Advocate, Pune who was the counsel for the respondents no. 6 and 7, were also impleaded.

9. The respondent no. 1/plaintiff has since withdrawn the suit insofar as against the publishers of Times of India, Mumbai Mirror, Pune Mirror and Bangalore Mirror as well as against the counsel Sona Pardasani and the suit now remains only against the complainants and the petitioner herein who was the IO.

10. The petitioner though at the relevant time the IO of the said FIR, has since been transferred to the Bomb Detection and Disposal Squad (BDDS), Police Commissionerate, Pune, Maharashtra.

11. The petitioner applied to the suit Court for deletion of his name and which application has been dismissed by the learned ADJ in view of the averments in the plaint filed by the respondent no. 1/plaintiff against the petitioner/defendant.

12. I have at the outset enquired from the counsel for the respondent no. 1/plaintiff as to how the respondent no. 1/plaintiff can maintain a suit for damages for defamation qua what has transpired during the investigation of the FIR and in Court in pursuance thereto, when the outcome of the prosecution is not known as yet.

13. This Court in Shri Ram Singh Batra vs. Smt. Sharan Premi, (2006) 133 DLT 126 also was concerned with a suit for recovery of damages for defamation by publication in the newspapers of the FIR registered against the plaintiff therein and arrest of the plaintiff therein. It was pleaded that the complaint on the basis of which F