A cooperative society lacks locus standi to file a defamation complaint if the actual aggrieved party, namely its Managing Director, has not initiated the proceedings.

1. This revision petition has been filed by the petitioners for quashing the complaint case No. 983/93 pending in the Court of Judicial Magistrate, Guwahati and the entire proceeding therein and also the order dated 1-6-1994 passed by the said Magistrate explaining the offence u/S 500/501/502 read with S.34, I.P.C.

2. Plea against the maintainability of the complaint in the above mentioned complaint case has been raised to the effect that the person aimed against in the impugned news item is not the Brahmaputra valley Regional Handloom Weavers' Co - operative Society Ltd., but the Managing Director Mr. Jagannath Sarma, and that as the Managing Director Mr. Sarma did not file the complaint as the person aggrieved, the defamation case file at the instance of the Co - operative Society is not maintainable.

3. The five petitioners, namely, petitioner No. 1 Homen Borgohain is the Editor of Asom Bani, and Assamese Weekly, petitioners Nos. 2, 3 and 4 P. G. Baruah, Binu Baruah and Surajit govinda Baruah are the partners of M/s. Asom Bani and petitioner No. 5 Hari Chandra Bora is the Printer and Publisher of Asom Bani.

4. Complainant opposite party, namely. The Brahmaputra Valley Regional Handloom Weavers' Co - operative Society Ltd, represented by its PRO Shri Prabhat Chandra Sarma is a Co - operative Society under Assam Co - operative Societies Act, 1949 and engaged in manufacturing cloth under the scheme of Govt of India, known as Janata Cloth Production Scheme under the State Level Implementation Committee (SLIC). the Managing Director of the complainant society is Shri Jagannath Sarma.

5. The opposite party as complainant filed complaint case as mentioned above u/S 500/501/502 read with S.34, of the I.P.C. alleging defamation by virtue of a news item published in the said Assamese weekly Asom Bani dated 3-9-1993 in the column "Dispur Darshan" under the caption "Choror Murat Tel" (oil on the head of the thief). The complainant felt humiliated and aggrieved as the news item tarnished the reputation of the complainant in the public eyes. The news items was published in Assamese and the English translation has been reproduced as below : -
"An allegation of misappropriation of more than two hundred crores of rupees is raised against Shri Jagannath Sarma, the Managing Director of the Brahmaputra Valley Regional Weavers' Co - operative Society. As the amount is more than two hundred crores of rupees the Chief Minister was compelled to commit in the Assembly that the matter would be enquired into through the CBI, however, no enquiry is started till today. The opposition parties also stopped raising the issue of Jagannath Sarma's corruption on the floor of the Assembly. Their mysterious silence has created various confusions in the minds of many. The big thing is that the Directorate of Handloom and Weaving, in spite of having clear proof of misappropriation of several hundred crores of rupees, has even in this year instructed Brahmaputra Valley Co - operative Society to manufacture Janata Cloth so that several millions of rupees can be collected. It is worth saying by the elders that King's dear needs no Palanquin Carrier.'

6. On the basis of the complaint, the trial Court took cognizance and issued process and on receipt of summons the petitioners appeared and on the date, i.e. on 1-6-1994, fixed for explaining the offence to the accused persons, an application was filed praying for dropping the proceedings initiated on the complaint petition on the ground that offence of defamation u/S 500/501/5