The essence of the offence of defamation consists in its tendency to cause pain felt by a person who knows himself to be the object of unfavourable sentiments of his fellow-creatures, and those inconveniences to which a person who is the object of such unfavourable sentiments is exposed.

1. The second respondent was married to Sidharth Kasana, son of the petitioner, on 15.02.2010, but the marriage ran into rough weather and she statedly left the matrimonial home. Eventually, she filed a petition under Section 12 of Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act, 2005 (DV Act, for short) on 26.06.2014, attributing certain acts of commission, inter alia to the petitioner (father-in-law), others impleaded in the said proceedings being inclusive of the husband, the mother-in-law, sisters-in-law etc. In the said petition under DV Act, she levelled certain allegations against the petitioner as well.

2. Referring to the said allegations terming them as false and concocted, the petitioner filed a criminal complaint in the court of Metropolitan Magistrate alleging offence under Section 500 of Indian Penal Code, 1860 (IPC) having been committed. It may be mentioned here that the other persons who were impleaded as respondents in the petition under DV Act also filed similar complaints, all the said complaints having been inquired into under Section 200 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 (Cr.P.C.) by the Metropolitan Magistrate. In each criminal complaint, including the one preferred by the petitioner, alleging offence under Section 500 IPC, the respective complainant appeared as the solitary witness (CW-1).

3. The Metropolitan Magistrate dismissed all the abovesaid complaints, by order dated 20.08.2015, inter alia, observing that the same were premature, the falsity or otherwise of the allegations of domestic violence attributed by the second respondent in the proceedings under DV Act being a matter yet to be adjudicated upon.

4. The petitioner and other similarly placed complainants assailed the aforesaid order dated 20.08.2015 in the court of Sessions, the challenge by the petitioner being through Crl. Rev. 47/2015. By common order dated 30.09.2015, the revisional court upheld the view taken by the Metropolitan Magistrate observing that the complaints were “premature” and, thus, declining to interfere.

5. Aggrieved by the said result of the complaint, and the revision petition, the petitioner approached this Court by the petition at hand invoking the inherent power and jurisdiction under Section 482 Cr.P.C.

6. The petition has been resisted by the second respondent. During the course of arguments, it was brought to light that aside from his own statement that the averments in the petition under DV Act were false, motivated and designed to tarnish his reputation, the petitioner has not made any averments about the publication of the impugned averments in the petition to any third person much less any third person having brought in the witness box to affirm such publication as had the effect of lowering the reputation of the petitioner in the estimation of others. The petitioner, however, places reliance on view taken by a learned single judge of this court in Crl.M.C. 447/2013 titled Bikramjit Ahluwalia & Ors. vs Simran Ahhluwalia & Ors. decided on 01.05.2015, particularly the observations in para 26 of the said decision, to the effect that the pleadings form part of judicial records and, thus, are in the nature of “public documents” and “anything stated in such pleadings amount to publication of the defamatory statements”.

7. More or less similar issue had arisen in the context of another criminal complaint alleging offence of defamation punishable under Section 500 IPC in Crl.M.C. 4514/2015 titled S.T.P. Singh vs. Tarsem Singh & Ors. decided by this Court on 03.07.2018. As noted in the said decision, the offence of defamation is defined in Section 499 IPC, which, to the extent necessary, reads thus:-

“499. Defamation.—Whoever, by words either spoken or intended to be read, or by signs or by visible representations, makes or publishes any imputation concerning any person intending to harm, or knowing or having reason to believe that such imputation will harm, the reputation of such person, is said, except in the c