A defamation complaint must be filed by a person aggrieved, and lack of personal injury precludes standing to sue.

ORDER :

(G. Jayachandran, J.)

The petitioner herein is the present Speaker of the Tamilnadu State Assembly. He is also the sitting MLA elected from Radhapuram consitutuency as a candidate of DMK party. The respondent is former Member of the State Assembly and present Joint Secretary, Legal Wing of AIADMK party. The speech of the petitioner on 21/11/2023 at Chennai in a book release function is the subject matter of the private complaint for the offence under Sections 499 r/w 500 of IPC filed by the respondent. The Special Court at Chennai for cases against MP and MLA had taken cognizance and issued summons to the petitioner. The complaint is impugned in this petition to quash on the following grounds:-

(a) The complainant has no locus to maintain the compliant for defamation, since the alleged imputation is not against him. Neither his party AIADMK has authorised him to file the complaint on behalf of the party. There is a statutory embargo under Section 199 of Cr.P.C to take cognizance of the offence under Section 499 IPC except upon a complaint made by person aggrieved.

(b) The speech of the petitioner is neither slanderous nor malicious for to be prosecuted under Sections 499 of IPC. Based on video circulated in social media and press news, the complaint is filed. The complainant has not heard the speech nor examined any person who heard the speech. The qualified speech without any imputation against any individual or the organisation namely AIADMK will not fall within the definition of defamation.

(c) The complaint filed through e-portal of the Court on 15/07/2024 under Section 200 Cr.P.C is not maintainable, after enforcement of Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023 (in short “BNSS 2023) with effect from 01.07.2024. As per Section 531 of BNSS 2023, after 01/07/2024, the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 is repealed and only for pending matters, the old Code will apply and not for fresh petitions/applications.

2. The Learned Senior Counsel for the petitioner relying on the judgements of this court rendered in Tamilisai Soundararajan –vs-Dhadi K. Karthikeyan reported in [2021 (3) MWN (Crl.) 159] and Maridass -vs- S.R.S.Umari Shankar reported in [MANU/TN/0788/2022] submitted that, the respondent is a person neither affected by the slandeours speech nor authorised to file complaint by the person/organisation aggrieved by the slanderous speech, hence, he cannot maintain a defamation complaint.

3. Referring the speech of the petitioner, the Learned Senior Counsel submitted that the complainant had cherry picked a part of the speech to mislead. The speech of the petitioner relates to an event happened few years ago when the AIADMK party lost its Leader and struggling with in-fight. At that time, the complainant was not in AIADMK party and he cannot claim any knowledge about, what transpired at that point of time within the AIADMK party.

4. Regarding maintainability of the complaint filed under the Old Code of Criminal Procedure, the Learned Senior Counsel relying on the judgments rendered in Deepu –vs- State of UP reported in [MANU/UP.3040/2024] and XXXX –Vs- State of UT Chandigarh and Others reported in [MANU/PH/3009/2024] emphasised that Cr.P.C, 1973 repealed w.e.f. 01/07/2024. Ergo; no new fresh appeal or application or revision or petition can be filed under Cr.P.C on or after 01/07/2024. Only applications pending in Court before 01/07/2024 can be dealt under Cr.P.C,1973.

5. In response to the above submission made on behalf of the petitioner, the learned Senior Counsel appearing for the Respondent/Complainant submitted that, the complainant being the Joint Secretary of the State Legal Wing of AIADMK and member of the Party Legal Advisory Committee, he is competent to maintain the complaint. Further, the complainant, before filing the complaint caused notice to the petitioner through his Lawyer on 22/11/2023 calling upon the petitioner to convene a press meet and apologize for the slanderous statement and pay compensation of Rupee