Judgment S.K. Kaul, J. 1. THIS is an appeal by the complainant against the order of Special Judicial Magistrate, Lucknow who acquitted the respondent No. 1 of the charge punishable under Section 500 of the Indian Penal Code. 2. THE prosecution story is that Ram krishna Avasthi complainant-appellant was the Deputy News Editor in the Editorial Section of National Herald, a newspaper published from Lucknow. He was married to one Deepa Avasthi. THE younger sister of Smt. Deepa Avasthi happened to be one Mohini who was said to have married respondent No. 1 on 8-2-1977. THE allegations of the complainant were that he alongwith his wife had attended the marriage of Monini Upreti and had also visited the house of the accused at Allahabad on their invitation. He or his wife had no hand in the settlement of marriage of Mohini Upreti with the accused-respondent No. 1 nor did they ever interfere in the personal life of respondent No. 1 and Mohini Upreti. Relations between Mohini Upreti and her husband respondent No. 1 became strained so much so that the accused- respondent No. 1 sent a registered notice (Ex. Ka-1) on 27-9-1977 to the complainant Ram Krishna Avasthi as well as his wife Smt. Deepa Avasthi as well as to his own wife Smt. Mohini Upreti in which defamatory allegations were made. THE aforesaid notice was sent per registered acknowledgment due to all the three but the notice sent to Smt. Deepa Avasthi was returned without delivery. Smt. Mohini Upreti being shocked by the contents of the notice had left the copy (Ex. Ka-1) on a table in her drawing room and the same was read by one Shri K. C. Chandola. This amounted to be publication according to the complainant and, therefore, he moved a complaint under Section 500 of the Indian Penal Code against accused-respondent No. 1. THE Magistrate took the cognizance and after recording evidence found that the charge was not made out inasmuch as there was no publication in law about this alleged defamatory notice and as such he acquitted the respondent No. 1 of the charge punishable under Section 500 of the Indian Penal Code. Being aggrieved, the complainant has come up to this Court in appeal, 3. I have heard the learned counsel for the appellant. In my view this appeal has no force. 4. Being aggrieved, the complainant has come up to this Court in appeal, 3. I have heard the learned counsel for the appellant. In my view this appeal has no force. 4. IT is not disputed in this case that this notice (Ex. Ka-1) was sent per registered acknowledgment due by the accused-respondent No. 1 to the complainant Ram Krishna Avasthi as well as Mohini Upreti. The notice sent to Deepa Avasthi was returned as it was not delivered to her. It was urged before me by the teamed counsel for the appellant that since this notice was sent by a counsel on behalf of the respondent No. 1, it amounted to publication in law. Section 499 of the Indian Penal Code defines defamation as follows : "Whoever by words either spoken or intended to be read, or by signs or by visible representations, makes or publishes any imputation concerning any person intending to harm, or knowing or having reason to believe that such imputation will harm, the reputation of such person, is said, except in the cases hereinafter excepted, to defame that person. Explanation 1.-It may amount to defamation to impute anything to a deceased person, if the imputation would harm the reputation of that person if living, and is intended to be hurtful to the feelings of his family or other near relatives. Explanation 2.-It may amount to defamation to make an imputation concerning a company or an association or collection of persons as such. Explanation 3.-An imputation in the form of an alternative or expressed ironically, may amount to defamation. Explanation 4.-No imputation is said to harm a person's reputation unless that imputation directly, or indirectly in the estimation of others, lowers the moral or intellectual character of that person, on lowers the character of that person in respect of his caste or of his calling, or lowers the credit of that person, or causes it to be believed that the body of that person is in a loathsome state, or in a state generally considered as disgraceful." 5. THE law requires that imputation has to be published and publication has to be to a stranger or strangers. Can a letter enclosed in an envelope which is sent per registered acknowledgment due to the complainant himself or to the alleged conspirators though sent on behalf of the accused by his counsel amount to publication or not ? THE law requires that imputation has to be published and publication has to be to a stranger or strangers. Can a letter enclosed in an envelope which is sent per registered acknowledgment due to the complainant himself or to the alleged conspirators though sent on behalf of the accused by his counsel amount to publication or not ? THE law is very clear. It is not publication if precaution is taken by the accused to sent the communication by means of a registered acknowledgment due letter meaning thereby that his intention was that it should be received only by the addressee. THE very object of sending a letter per registered post is to ensure that the letter is delivered only to the addressee and not to anyone else. Indeed, in this case the notice sent to Smt. Deepa Avasthi being not received, was returned back to the addressor. THE question is whether notice sent by an advocate on behalf of a client would amount to publication. THE answer evidently has to be in the negative because if we allow a notice sent by a counsel on behalf of his client to be a publication, we would be shutting doors whereby an illiterate litigant would be denied his rights to take recourse to law toy sending a notice which is sometimes required by law. 6. IN the case of Sukhdeo Vithal Pansare v. Prabhakar Sukhdeo Pansare 1974 Criminal Law Journal 1435, Bholey, J. of the Bombay High Court observed at page 1437 that, "I am inclined to agree with him because the advocate who sent the notice acted on behalf of his client. He got it typewritten in the discharge of his duties form the typist. If, therefore, the advocate acting on behalf of his client while discharging his duties got it typewritten and sent it, can it be said to be a publication to the typist? After all communication by the petitioner to his lawyer was a privileged communication and the lawyer in the discharge of his duties got it typewritten from the typist. Such a publication to a clerk or typist, in my view, cannot be a publication to a person other than the complainant. With respect I am in agreement with the observations made in the above noted ruling. Such a publication to a clerk or typist, in my view, cannot be a publication to a person other than the complainant. With respect I am in agreement with the observations made in the above noted ruling. Besides we have a Full Bench decision of our own Court reported in Queen Empress v. Taki Husain, 7 Allahabad 205, Vol. IV. In that case the facts were that Taki Husain was prosecuted for defamation under Section 500 of the Indian Penal Code. The facts brought on record were that the notice was first written in English by one Mr. Vansittart and it was translated by his clerk Ashiq Ali. Vansittart was an advocate. Taki Hussain had dispatched the translated version by post to Basawan Singh. Mahmood, J. whose view was followed by the majority, observed at page 222 that, "in the present case the accused was not tried for publishing the libel to Mr. Vansittart or t? the clerk, and even if he had been so tried, he might possibly have pleaded that tie communication made by him was privileged, and could not be proved..........The charge was made solely in respect of the communication of the letter to the prosecutor, upon whom it was incumbent to prove that the letter was so made or published as to do him 'harm' within the meaning of Section 499 of the Penal Code. I hold that taking the case as it has been referred to us, no such charge has been established," Indeed Old Field, J. at page 223 in the same case observed, that- "Where the words containing the imputation are in writing, it is. necessary, in order to constitute the offence of defamation under Section 499 of the Penal Code, that the maker of the imputation shall intend that the words shall be read, that is, read by some other person than the person defamed, or, in other words, that; they shall be made public, for the essence of the offence of defamation in the Penal Code is the intention to harm reputation, and that necessarily requires publicity to be given to the imputation...... We have to determine this intention from the facts in each case. We have to determine this intention from the facts in each case. Where the only act is to send a letter under a closed cover to a person, containing imputations against him, the intention to make public its contents so as to harm his reputation cannot be inferred, and I see no difference in this case, where the writing took the form of a notice of an action, and no more was done than to send it to the complainant under a closed cover. Any publicity given to its contents, and consequent harm to reputation, was or could be only by the act of the complainant, and not by that of the accused. It rested with the former to publish the contents or not the latter might have taken steps in other ways t? give it publicity, but did not and the circumstances will not justify us in holding that he intended that the contents should be made public, and so harm the reputation of the complainant." 7. NOW in this case, as noted above, in the notice itself, we find that allegations were made jointly against three persons namely Smt. Deepa Avasthi, Shri Ram Krishna Avasthi and Smt. Mohini Upreti so much so that according to the giver of the notice a conspiracy was hatch?! by these persons with the object of cheating the complainant and in pursuance of that object certain achievements were made. In that view of the matter by way of this notice each of these three persons was tried to be held liable jointly as well as severally for the acts committed by them in pursuance of a conspiracy. In that /new of the matter it cannot be said that only one person was being imputed and the other two persons were being informed about the imputation relating to one person. In that situation, it cannot be urged that imputation of Shri Ram Krishna Avastli was being put to Smt. Mohini Upreti or vice versa. NOW the story is that Smt. Mohini Upreti of her own left the notice received by her on the table of her drawing room in such a way that it was subsequently read by Sri K. C. Chandola in the evening. I do not think the accused can be held responsible for making this notice need by Shri Chandola as noted above. I do not think the accused can be held responsible for making this notice need by Shri Chandola as noted above. His intentions were very clear when he sent this notice per registered post in an envelope to the addressees. That being so in the first place such evidence as has been given in this case was rightly disbelieved by the trial Court because if this type of evidence is allowed to be accepted, the very object of sending a communication by means of an envelope to an addressee would be given a go bye if the addressee himself by his act allows that communication to be made public. The Full Bench decision of our own Court noted by me above goes against the contention of the complainant-appellant. The learned counsel for the complainant wanted to rely upon a Madras High Court decision reported in Ayeasha Bi v. Peer Khan Sahib, AIR 1954 Mad 41. But the facts of that case were totally different. In that case Peer Khan Sahib and others were prosecuted under Section 324/323 of the Indian Penal Code by Aveasha Bi, wife of Kasim Sahib. In the course of deposition of Ayeasha Bi, in the open Court certain questions were put by an advocate on behalf of the accused which questions obviously were defamatory in character. On those questions later on a complaint for defamation was moved and in that background Ramaswami, J., observed that:- "The rule under Section 126 does not require that a lawyer should vicariously make himself responsible for an offence which he never committed and in any event he will not be advancing his clients' cause by remaining mute since in that case it is a fair inference to draw that what he did was either in violation or in excess of the instructions given to him or that he and the client conspired to defame the complainant and in which even both the lawyer and this client would find themselves in the dock, ranged as co-accused. So looked at from any point of view the rule under Section 126 Evidence Act cannot cover the case of a lawyer acknowledging a notice given to him and replying that what he did was only in pursuance of his instructions and nothing more". In that case the questions put were spoken in open Court and there was publication in the eyes of law. In that case the questions put were spoken in open Court and there was publication in the eyes of law. That case obviously does not apply to the facts of this case before me. 8. AS a result, I am of this view that the findings of the trial Court were perfectly correct and that the accused-respondent No. I cannot be held guilty under Section 500 of the Indian Penal Code. The appeal is dismissed. Appeal dismissed.