This is an interesting case. The First Class Bench Court, Tiruvottiyur, discharged the respondent Kanniappa, in a case under section 504, Indian Penal Code. The respondent abused the petitioner in obscene terms stating “May his wife be ravished! May the hydrocelic fellow (the petitioner is said to have hydrocele) be beaten till his hydrocele is blown to bits!” This abuse was uttered in the absence of the petitioner, but the people who heard the abuse, they were members of the Panchayat, conveyed it to the petitioner, Muniswami Naicker, who felt highly put out on hearing their report and felt like committing a breach of the peace but restrained himself with an effort.

The question is whether, in these circumstances, an offence under section 504, Indian Penal Code, was or was not made out prima facie. Mr. Asker Ali, for the petitioner, urged with great vehemence, that there is really no distinction between a man who utters such words to panchayatdars and asks them to convey the words to the petitioner and a person who sends such insulting words by letter to the petitioner and, that it has been held by the Bombay High Court, in Silvestervaz v. Louis Dias1, that if insulting words