A private person becomes amenable to writ jurisdiction only if connected with a statutory authority or discharging any official duty. The court emphasized that the petitioner's remedy was not available under public law as the respondent did not have any public duty to perform.

JUDGMENT :

JAVED IQBAL WANI, J.

1. The issues involved in the instant petitions are akin and analogous to each other and as such are being disposed of by this common judgment.

O.W.P. No. 826/2014

2. The petitioner in the instant petition has sought the following reliefs:

“Respondent may be directed to pay damages to the tune of Rs. 5 crore to the petitioner for the defamation and injury to the status, position, prestige, honour and reputation of the petitioner.

The petitioner may be awarded costs.”

3. The aforesaid reliefs are being claimed on the premise that the petitioner has to his credit brilliant and unblemished academic and service career after having been appointed in Isalamia College, Srinagar, in the year 1968 as Physical Director/Director Physical Education. The petitioner states to have undergone during his service various training courses connected with his job within and outside the erstwhile State of Jammu and Kashmir.

4. It is being stated by the petitioner that during his working in the College, certain instances of misappropriation of funds committed by the respondent herein along with one Altaf-ur-Rahman were noticed by him resulting into referring of the same to the Commissioner Vigilance Organization, Kashmir, in writing on 1.8.1997 and the consequent registration of FIR No. 66/1997 whereunder the respondent and said Altaf-ur-Rahman upon investigation were found to have committed offences under Prevention of Corruption Act by the investigating officer whereafter the respondent herein drafted and issued a defamatory letter against the petitioner addressed to Commissioner Vigilance Organization besides forwarding copies thereof to Minister, Higher Education, Commissioner Secretary Higher Education and SP Vigilance Organization being his friend maligning in the latter the image and reputation of the petitioner. The said defamatory letter is stated to have been accompanied by two more defamatory documents referring the petitioner as scandalous person having history if not a history sheeter, eccentric shirker, of poor power of judgment, of unreliable conduct, arbitrary style of functioning, of inconsistent behavior, arrogant, incompetent, of garrulous nature and of leech-like sticking to power.

5. The defamatory enclosures in question are stated to have been mentioning the working of the petitioner as highly unsatisfactory and his behaviour towards administration and the staff as disgusting, and the staff of the Islamia College having deplored the role of the petitioner in tarnishing the image of the Islamia College by lodging false complaints to the higher authorities making a request therein to ensure that action is taken against the petitioner for his reported absence from duty and deplorable behaviour being unhealthy for college academics.

6. It is being stated that the said defamatory annexures came to be held as defamatory even by the Investigating Officer who had investigated the complaints against the respondent herein.

7. It is being next stated that the petitioner came to know about the defamatory write-ups in May 2000 whereupon the petitioner filed a complaint against the respondent herein before the Chief Judicial Magistrate in the month of June 2001 which complaint came to be protracted by the respondent herein on one ground on the other including by calling the same in question before this court in a petition being 561A No. 26/2004 wherein more defamatory statements were made by the respondent against the petitioner.

8. It is being last stated by the petitioner that the respondent tarnished the image of the petitioner and caused an injury and damage to his position, status, honour, reputation and prestige and, as such, became liable to pay damages to the petitioner as sought in the instant petition.

9. Per contra, reply has been filed by the respondent herein to the petition wherein a preliminary objection is raised qua the maintainability of the petition and its dismissal is being sought for two-fold reasons: