Defamatory statements must be substantiated with evidence; mere assertions of good faith do not negate liability for defamation.

J U D G M E N T

Defendant in O.S.706/99 on the file of Additional Munsiff Court, Trhissur is the appellant. Respondent is the plaintiff. Respondent, an engineering graduate was the Chief Engineer of M/s Lathia Rubber Manufacturing Company Ltd. Thereafter he was the Technical Director of M/s. Rubber Coats (India) Private Ltd, from 1978 to 1995. He filed a suit against first appellant, the Managing Director and second appellant, the Production Director of M/s. Rubber Coats (India) Private Ltd, contending that Ext.A5 notice published by them contains false, malicious and defamatory statements made with an intention to defame his reputation. Respondent sought damages of Rs.50,000/- for the loss of reputation caused by the appellants. Appellant admitted the issuance of Ext.A5 notice. The case of appellant was that the notice had to be issued because of the communication sent by respondent to the customers of the company and published in Indian Express. According to the appellants, the publication made by respondent made an impression in the minds of the customers of Rubber Coats (India) Ltd, to the effect that the company had already ceased its operation and does not entertain any further orders from customers and the malafide message thus conveyed by respondent was that the company is in a very bad shape. According to appellant many of the customers enquired to them whether the company is still working and therefore "in order to protect the interest of the company, appellants were forced to issue Ext.A5 notice to its customers in good faith".

2. Learned Munsiff on the evidence of PW1 to 3 and DW1 and Ext.A1 to A14 and B1 to B3 found that contents of Ext.A5 notice is defamatory and it adversely affected the reputation of respondent and therefore granted a decree for realisation of damages of Rs.10,000/-. Appellant challenged the decree and judgment before District court, Thrissur in A.S.339/2001. Learned Additional District Judge analysed the material and re-appreciated the evidence and found that allegations in Ext.A5 notice are perse defamatory and evidence of DW1, the second appellant, establish that the contents of Ext.A5 notice would effect the reputation of any person and accepted evidence of PW1 to 3 and held that the defamatory statements in Ext.A5 effected the reputation of respondent. Appeal was dismissed confirming the decree and judgment of the trial court. This second appeal is filed challenging the concurrent decree and judgment of the courts below.

3. Learned counsel appearing for appellants was heard.

4. Arguments of learned counsel was that courts below did not properly appreciate the defence taken by the appellants and wrongly appreciated the defence as justification by truth when in fact what was contended in the written statement was that publication of Ext.A5 notice was necessitated to protect the interest of the company and in good faith. It was vehemently argued that if the courts below had appreciated the evidence, in that background, the yardstick for appreciating the evidence would have been different and therefore the appreciation of evidence was perverse and hence the findings are to be interfered with. It was also argued that the contents of Ext.A5 notice cannot be said to be defamatory and it had to be issued by the appellants on account of the publication of notice by the respondent by addressing the customers of the company and also by publishing in newspaper conveying an impression to the customers that the company had practically stopped working and therefore courts below should not have found that the allegations in Ext.A5 notice are defamatory.

5. Learned Munsiff and learned Additional District Judge appreciated Ext.A5 notice in the proper perspective. The relevant portion of Ext.A5 reads:

"We would also take this opportunity to caution you against certain nefarious activities of one of our erstwhile Directors Mr. Justin who was stripped of his powers by the Board of Directors for gross financial irre