Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, Apr 9: Principal District Judge Kulgam Tahir Khurshid Raina has rejected the defamation suit filed by a lawyer seeking damages to the tune of Rs 10 crore.
The Plaintiff who claims to be an advocate of 14 years standing at the bar had filed the instant suit of defamation against the defendants seeking damages from the defendants for lodging a false and frivolous complaint of sexual harassment against him by the defendant with the connivance of other defendants at Police Station Kulgam.
By way of this suit, the plaintiff had claimed compensation for this act of defamation by the defendants to the tune of Rs 10 crore and Rs 1 lakh for causing mental trauma.
The question before the court was whether filing of a complaint by a woman against a person at police station amounts to defamation of a person against whom complaint is lodged and whether calling the person to police station in response to any such complaint adds to defamation of the person and gives him a cause of action to file a suit of defamation against the complainant.
“This court has fairly observed that what the defendant has done by lodging a complaint at police station was in accordance with the law and calling of plaintiff by the police to respond to the allegations in the complaint was the mandate of fair procedure. Thus, at all does not amount to defamation per se”, Principal District Judge said.
“If the complaint would have been declared as frivolous by the police after its investigation or even by the court in the event of filing of charge sheet by the police in the court, in that very eventuality, the plaintiff had a clear cause of action against the defendants but not at the stage when the complaint is still at its infancy before the police”, the court further said.
Once this court has drawn its sufficient satisfaction that the instant plaint does not disclose any cause of action at all, it entails rejection of the instant plaint at the very outset, the Judge said while rejecting the plaint in terms of Order 7 Rule 11(a) CPC.
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