A defamatory statement made in the course of a duty or moral obligation, without malice, is protected by qualified privilege.

J. K. MISRA, J.

( 1 ) THIS second appeal is against the reversing judgment of the appellate court setting aside the decree passed in the plaintiff's favour for damages at an amount of Rs. 25/ -. There was a criminal case (case No. 80/1955-56) filed by one brundaban Panda against the plaintiff before the local Adalati Panchayat. The adalati Panchayat asked the defendant to make an enquiry and report on the said case. The defendant filed his report Ext. 4 in which he stated as to what he had found out during the enquiry, and he further stated in that report that the plaintiff was a man of goonda class. The plaintiffs case was that the defendant did not at all make any such enquiry as reported by him in Ext. 4: that the complainant in criminal Case No. 80 had lodged the case falsely against him at the defendant's instance; and that the defendant's observation in Ext. 4 that the plaintiff was a man of goonda class amounted to defamation of the plaintiff. The plaintiff claimed Rs. 150/- towards damages. The defendant's plea in the written statement was that he had stated in the report what he ascertained as truth during the enquiry into the criminal complaint, and that there was no grudge or malice behind his observation, in the said report. He further pleaded immunity under Sections 110 and 111 of the Grama Panchayat Act. He also pleaded that the plaintiff had no status,

( 2 ) BOTH the courts below have rightly held that Sections 110 and 111 of the Grama panchayat Act could give no protection to the defendant, in as much as the defendant himself was not a member of the Adalati Panchayat or Gram Panchayat, and the Adalati Panchayat had no right under law to get a complaint enquired into by a third person. Though, the plaintiff's case was that there was no enquiry made against him at all as stated in Ext. 4, the trial court assumed, without deciding, that there had been an enquiry made by the defendant into the complaint against the plaintiff at the instance of the Adalati Panchayat, but observed that the defendant's statement in the report "that the plaintiff was a man of goonda class was not borne out by the facts appearing in the report". In the first court of appeal, the appellant did not challenge the facts mentioned in ext. 4, but only wanted to press that the defendant's observation, that he was a man of goonda class, in the said report, was an uncalled for one. Though the plaintiff had denied in his evidence to have attended the enquiry made by the defendant, the evidence of the defendant and the two witnesses examined on his side (D. Ws. 2 and 3) who have been relied on by the appellate Court, establishes the factum of enquiry. Had there been no enquiry and no facts elicited through the enquiry, the position would have been different; but in the present case it is now to be taken as an accepted fact that there was an enquiry by the defendant, and the facts stated in the enquiry report were true, and the limited question for consideration was whether the comment of the defendant in the body of the report that the plaintiff was a man of goonda class was justified. Though it was not the plea of the defendant in his written statement that his observation, that the plaintiff was a man of goonda class, was based On truth, attempt was made at the evidence stage by the defendant to establish through the evidence of D. Ws. 2 and 3 that the plaintiff was in fact a goonda, and this was rejected by the trial court. The appellate Court, without discussing the evidence in detail of P. Ws. 2 and 3 Which was rejected by the trial court, has come to a sweeping generalisation that the previous conduct of the plaintiff, independent of what happened during the enquiry, would justify his being called a goonda, though the defendant's own evidence is that independent of what transpired during the enquiry, he had no knowledge about the general conduct of the plaintiff. The evidence of D. Ws. 2 and 3 is vague regarding their assertion that the pla