1986 PLP 2467 (MLD)

The petition for special leave to appeal was filed in August, 1983 against the order, dated 17‑7‑1983 of officiating Sessions Judge, Lahore; whereof learned Sessions Judge had acquitted the respondents in the complaint filed by the petitioner under section 500/501/502/504, P. P. C. The complaint was filed on 4‑6‑1978 before the City Magistrate, Lahore. Subsequently, it was transferred vide order of this Court, dated 30‑1‑1979 for trial, to the Court of Sessions Judge, Lahore. The petition had come up for hearing for the first time on 9‑10‑1983 and learned counsel for the petitioner had sought time on that day to place on record some documents and copies of some statements. The request was 'granted. The required documents were not filed. The P.S.L.A. has been fixed on office report that documents have not been filed. Learned counsel for the petitioner sought further time for placing the required documents on record. The request, however, was not granted by me keeping in view the fact that he had not considered it necessary at the initial stage to file any document and had filed the petition as it is, and had not .bothered to supplement the petition by the required documents for period of almost 1 years. Learned counsel, thereafter, prayed that he would argue the petition as it is. The grievance of the complainant in the complaint was that an article written by respondent No.3 Habib Wahab‑ul‑Khairi, incharge sub‑office, Islamabad was published in Weekly Sahafat in 29th edition, at pages 43 and

45. Respondent No.2 Zia Shaid was the Editor of Weekly Sahafat while respondent No.2 scandalous, defamatory, false and fabricated imputations were made in the article with a view to damage his reputation, and character among his friends, associates, colleagues and relations. The complainant gave an account of his career which has been noted in the impugned judgment. The allegations levelled in the article and the explanations given by the respondents have also been noted in the impugned judgment in detail and I do not think it necessary to repeat all that. Learned counsel for the petitioner contended, (a) that the judgment is based on the documents produced by the respondents in defence which were photostat copies and not certified copies, and as such the same should not have been taken into consideration being inadmissible; (b) that learned trial Judge had wrongly noted in the judgment that the petitioner had conceded to the production of these documents; (c) that on the day, the case was fixed for arguments, the petitioner had filed an application to allow him to produce some documents which the learned trial Court wrongly refused; (d) that the observation of the learned trial Court that malice was not alleged against the respondents, is not factually correct; and (e) that in view of the fact that the respondents had taken the protection of some exceptions the learned trial Court should not .have held that the burden of proof remained on the complainant. The contention of learned counsel that the 'documents attached by the petitioner with the application were not admitted in evidence by learned trial Court on the day of arguments does not sound well, keeping in view the fact that, it is the petitioner's own case that some documents were attempted to be produced on the day of arguments, it does not prove that any application for additional evidence was made. If the petitioner or his counsel were so interested, the proper course was that an application should have been first moved for allowing him to produce additional evidence. The fact that the application was made on the day, the case was fixed for arguments, shows that the complainant had closed his case, and application for grant of additional evidence was the legal course and not that documents should have been asked to be read as evidence. Moreover, it is not stated as what was the connection of documents with the case, which arose out of publication of an article only. Leaned counsel has not produced any extract of the proceedings of the Court to show that any objection was taken by the complainant when the documents, now being objected to, were produced. In fact it is not the case of learned counsel for the petitioner that any objection was taken, on the day, the documents were produced. Obviously, learned trial Court rightly observed that since the complainant had not taken any objection to the production of these documents, he had conceded the same. Having gone through the impugned judgment, I do not feel inclined to agree with learned counsel for the petitioner that the judgment of acquittal is based merely on the plea of exceptions taken by the respondents. In fact learned trial Court has clearly observed that the article read as whole, gave a different meaning than the excerpts, relied upon by the complainant. The observation of learned trial Court in this regard shows that learned trial court had minutely perused the article and came to the conclusion that it was not scandalous in the sense, that it would hit the provisions of bringing the case within the forum for action for defamation. Apart from this, learned trial Court has taken certain items of the history of promotion of the complainant to higher grades and the actions taken by him in certain matters, and through a well‑reasoned and probable fact, refuted the claims made by the complainant. It has also been observed in the impugned judgment that perusal of the article shows that basically it was directed against the entire administration of the department, particularly the Chief Director, Mr. I.A. Sherwani who had not come up to vindicate his position and was yet in the throes of an action before the High Court where respondent Habib Wahab‑ul‑Khairi was pursuing his writ petition for his prosecution. Learned trial Court has also observed that the pungency did not appear as much against the complainant as it was directed against the department. The observation of the trial Court that whatever was said against the complainant, strictly related to his public performance which ordinarily cannot be termed as sacrosanct and by its nature was open to public criticism, is also worth appreciation. Learned trial Court, rightly observed in this regard that one is not to be much sensitive in such type of criticism. Each of the facts alleged by the complainant casting aspersions on his character were considered by the learned trial Court one by one and refuted not only reasonably but also in a sound manner. The learned trial Court has based his judgment on certain authorities of the Supreme Court, the dictation of which has been given in the impugned judgment and learned counsel for the petitioner has not drawn any distinction regarding relevancy of those authorities to the facts of the case in hand. In the circumstances enumerated above, no case for grant of special leave to file appeal has been made out. The petition is dismissed in limine. S. A. Dismissed in limine.