Criminal Miscellaneous Case No. 2715 of 1996 has been filed by one Mr. N. Ram, Editor, Frontline Biweekly and Criminal Miscellaneous Case No. 2564 of 1997 has been filed by Mr. T. S. Subramanyan and Mr. S. Rangarajan, who are the Columnist, and Printer and Publisher of the Frontline Bi-weekly respectively and all the three are the accused in the complaint in C.C. No. 111 of 1996 on the file of the Judicial First Class Magistrate, Trivandrum, filed by Mr. Siby Mathew, I.P.S., the then Deputy Director General of Police, Trivandrum, under Sections 500, 501 and 502 read with Section 34, IPC. Now, the present Miscellaneous Cases have been filed to quash the above said complaint, under Section 482, Cr.P.C.

2. The facts as narrated by the learned counsel appearing for the petitioners and the learned counsel appearing for the first-respondent complainant for appreciating their respective contentions can be briefly stated hereunder : A case was registered in Crime No. 225 of 1994 on 20-10-1994 in the Vanchiyoor Police Station regarding the overstay of two ladies, namely Fauziya Hassan and Mariam Rasheeda, who hailed from Maldives and during the investigation of the said case the police came to know that they were collecting secret informations from the Indian Space Research Organisation with the help of the Officers like Mr. Nambi Narayanan, Project Director, Cryogenic Systems Project, ISRO and Dr. Sasikumaran, General Manager, Fabrications, Cryo-engine. Therefore, another case was registered in Crime No. 246 of 1994 of the same police station on 13-11-1994 under Sections 3 and 4 of the Official Secrets Act, 1923 read with Section 34, IPC on the basis of the written complaint lodged by S. Vijayan, Sub Inspector of Police, Special Branch. While the cases were being investigated by the Kerala State Police, they were transferred to the CBI for investigation. The CBI thoroughly investigated both the crimes and also examined the investigation already conducted by the Kerala local police as well as the Kerala special branch police and filed a report before the Chief Judicial Magistrate, Ernakulam stating that the allegations of espionage against all the accused were false. The learned Magistrate thoroughly examined the report submitted by the CBI (R.C. 11(S)/94/CBI), agreed with the report and finally recorded a finding discharging all the six accused on 2-5-1996.

3. Thereafter, an article on the head "A witch hunt ends", written by one of the petitioners, Mr. T. S. Subramanyan, was published in the Front Line Biweekly dated 31-5-1996. This article according to the first respondent-complainant contains scandalous imputations which ultimately harmed the reputation of the Kerala State Police before the eyes of the public. And by this publication, the petitioners have made slander in order to lower the dignity of the Kerala Police and for remedying the injury inflicted on the morale of the police force, the first respondent-complainant has filed the above said complaint.

4. The complaint, according to the petitioners, does not make out a prima facie case against them to be tried under the above penal sections of IPC and in fact they are the verbatim reproduction of the materials collected and relied upon by the CBI during their investigation.

5. On account of the above admitted facts and rival contentions of both sides, the case laws as well as the relevant provisions in the IPC can be extracted hereunder for reference.

6. Section 499, IPC defines defamation as follows :

"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 cases hereinafter expected, to defame that person".

Section 500, which is the penal Section, defines as follows :

"Punishment for defamation. - Whoever defames anot