Wadsworth, J.

1. The appellants were defendants in a suit for damages for malicious prosecution arising out of an application which they preferred to the Magistrate against the plaintiffs and others praying the Magistrate to take proceedings under Section 144 of the Criminal Procedure Code.

2. The trouble arose out of a dispute between two sections of Sengundars with reference to the conduct of a festival managed by their community in the village temple. The appellants belong to the minority faction, which, owing to dissensions, had refused to pay its subscriptions to the funds out of which the festival is financed. As a consequence of this refusal, the majority faction, represented by the plaintiffs in this case, refused to allow the appellants party certain privileges at the festival. The one with which we are now concerned was the privilege of making an offering known as Deeparadhana before the God, and having it returned intact after it had been offered. Although the appellants asserted before the Magistrate that their offerings had been refused, the whole grievance appears to have been that they were not allowed to get back their offerings intact as they thought they sho