1. The first petitioner herein is a Tamil Newspaper namely, Daily Thanthi and the petitioners 2 and 3 are the Editors and Printers of another Tamil Newspaper namely, Malai Malar respectively. The petitioners herein have been arrayed as accused in a private complaint for offences under Sections 499 to 502 IPC, for having published an alleged defamatory article. The petitioners herein now seek to quash the private complaint.

2. Heard Mr.B.Kumar, learned Senior counsel appearing on behalf of the petitioners and Mr.B.Harikrishnan, learned counsel for the respondent.

3. The case of the complaint is that there was a news item on 10.12.2011 in the Tamil Daily “Malai Malar” which stated that an Engineer was granted divorce through impersonation of a lady as his wife and a leading lawyer from Karamadai near Coimbatore was implicated of being responsible for arranging the fake wife and fake lawyer in the said case. Since the complainant herein is a leading lawyer ordinarily practicing in the Courts of Karamadai, he had lodged the present complaint on the ground that the said news article has defamed his reputation and therefore sought for punishing the petitioners herein for offences un