1. All the aforesaid criminal petitions are taken up for analogous hearing and disposal, since these cases raise common questions of law based on similar set of facts.

2. The petitioner, by filing aforesaid criminal petitions under "section 482 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973, has prayed for quashing the impugned criminal proceedings-in (i) Case No.CR.03/2010, pending in the court of learned Chief judicial Magistrate, South Tripura, Udaipur, (ii) Case No. C.R. 168 of 2009, pending in the court of learned Judicial Magistrate, First Class, court No.5, West Tripura, Agartala, and (iii) Case No. CR.01 of 2010, pending in the court of learned Sub-Divisional Judicial Magistrate, Bishalgari West Tripura.

3. I have heard Mr. A.K. Bhowmik, learned senior counsel, assisted by Ms. M. Choudhury, learned counsel for the petitioner, and Mr. Somik Deb, learned counsel for the respondents.

4. The facts, leading to the filing of these criminal petitions, may be stated, in brief, are as follows : -

The petitioner is the Editor, Printer and Publisher of a Bengali newspaper, namely, the 'Syandan Patrika', which is published from Agartala, Tripura. The complainants are the employees of the Rose Val

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