Liability for defamation under Section 7 of the Press and Registration of Books Act, 1867 is limited to the Editor, Printer, and Publisher of a newspaper, and other persons can only be prosecuted if specific and clear allegations are made regarding their responsibility for the defamatory content.

ORDER

1. The instant petition under Section 482 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 (hereinafter "Cr.P.C."), has been filed on behalf of the petitioners seeking quashing of private criminal complaint no. 343/01/2002 filed by the respondent no.2 and the summoning order dated 26th June 2007 passed against the petitioners, amongst others, under Section 499/500/501/502/34 of the Indian Penal Code, 1860.

2. The respondent no.2, in its complaint, has accused 16 persons, including the instant petitioners, and the accused Company M/s Bennett Coleman & Co. Ltd. of having committed an offence of defamation by publishing the statement that "FIITJEE uses questionable tactics to attract students", in its publication Education Times of the Times of India, Delhi Edition on 18th February, 2002 and Lucknow Edition on 25th February, 2002. The petitioner no. 1/accused no. 4 was an employee of the accused Company, M/s Bennett Coleman & Co. Ltd., from 1979 to 2015 and petitioner no. 2/accused no. 15 from 1986 to 2004. Based on the complaint filed by the respondent no. 2, the accused persons, including the petitioners, were summoned vide order dated 26th June, 2007. The petitioners are assailing the said order as well as the complaint filed qua them.

3. Learned counsel appearing on behalf of the petitioners submitted that the petitioners have nothing to do with the publication or selection, printing or publication of any news item in any of the publications of the accused Company. It is submitted that there is no material against the petitioners either in the complaint or in the summoning order, including the pre-summoning evidence. The summoning order was passed without giving heed to the facts of the matter and the law and has been passed after 5 years of filing of the complaint.

4. It is submitted that the petitioners are in their second round of litigation in the instant matter as earlier they had approached this Court in Crl M.C. 1320/2013 and Crl M.C. 4183/2014. In both the said petitions, a coordinate bench of this Court by a common order/judgment dated 9th March, 2016 directed that as per the judgment of Arvind Kejriwal & Ors. vs. Amit Sibal & Anr., 2014 SCC OnLine Del 212, the Magistrate shall be empowered to discharge/drop the proceedings against the petitioners as per the directions as laid down in the judgement, which accordingly the petitioners complied with, but the application of the petitioners was declined by the learned Magistrate on account of the reversal of the said judgment in the same case by the Hon'ble Supreme Court in Amit Sibal vs. Arvind Kejriwal, (2018) 12 SCC 165 reiterating that the learned Magistrate had no power to discharge the accused, and on account of law laid down by the Hon'ble Supreme Court in the case of Adalat Parshad vs. Roop Lal Jindal & Anr., 2004(7) SCC 338.

5. It is submitted that the respondent no. 2 had filed the complaint alleging that the defamatory content was published in retaliation by the accused persons and Company, since, the respondent no. 2 stopped approaching it for publication of its advertisements when the Company refused to give them a discount. The petitioner no.1 was arraigned as an accused on the ground that the Chairperson and Managing Director of the accused Company took decisions regarding tariffs for the advertisements to be published only after consulting accused no. 4, petitioner no. 1 herein, accused 3 and 6. Further, petitioner no. 2 was arraigned for the reason that he approached the respondent no. 2 for negotiating the terms regarding tariff for the respondent no. 2 and gave him the impression that decision relating to tariffs for advertisement would be taken only by accused no. 2 and 5, after consultations with accused nos. 3 and 5 and petitioner no. 1. It is submitted that there is no act of defamation attributable to the petitioners and the learned Metropolitan Magistrate failed to appreciate that essential ingredients of intention to defame are missing in the c