JUDGMENT Sudhir Ranjan Roy, J: This revisional application by the accused petitioners is for quashing the proceeding being case No. C/1566 of 1983 under S. 500 of the Indian Penal Code, pending before the learned Chief Metropolitan Magistrate, Calcutta. 2 Suman Kumar Narula, the opposite party before us, filed the petition of complaint on the basis of two newspaper reports dated May 12, 1983 and May 18, 1983 published in the Bengal daily, Ananda Bazar Patrika. The petitioner No. 1 Debabrata Dhar is the author of the reports, the petitioner no 2 is the editor of the daily and the petitioner No.3 is its printer and publisher. 3. The impugned repots relate to the alleged diabolical murder of two young boys Sanjib and Tirthankar of the Barrackpore area in the district of 24 Parganas in which, according to the report, a non-Bengali family of ill-repute of the area is directly involved. It is reported that the said non-Bengali family is involved in different anti-social activities and the two young-men Sanjib and Tirthankar having come to know about the said activities, were eliminated. 4. The death of these two young-men at Pandua railway station which is fairly at a long distance from their residence at Barrackpore, created a lot of excitement in the area. 5. The investigation made by the local Police in this regard having possibly appeared to be unsatisfactory to many, Ananda Bazar Patrika, obviously with the object of keeping the public interest alive, engaged a private detective agency, Secret Eye, to embark into a parallel investigation so to say. 6. Debabrata Dhar, a retired D. I. G of Police and the petitioner no. 1 before us, is said to be the Director of the said agency. This agency allegedly conducted an investigation and made a report to the effect that the case was not one of suicide as the Police investigation tried to establish but it was a clear case of murder. The said report was published in two different issues of the Patrika with very prominent headlines and a sketch plan was appended to the part of the report published in the issue of the paper dated May 18, 1983 obviously to make the report more clear and more obviously to make the report more clear and more attractive to the readers. 7. 7. A reading of the report with reference to the sketch plan makes it clear that among the 'dramatis personae' involved in the alleged murder, the hero is a non-Bengali family attached to Sri Durga Fire Works of the village Saibana in the Barrackpore area. It is said that the ill-fated young men were brought out of a religious procession on the evening of 21st March to the factory site of Sri Durga Fire Works in a blue delivery van of the factory and therefrom they were dispatched to their ultimate destination at Pandua in a white Ambassador car belonging to the same owners. They were made unconscious on the way and then placed side by side on the railway track where their trunks with detached heads were discovered on the next day. 8. According to the complainant he is the managing partner of Sri Durga Fire Works and the non-Bengali family of ill-repute as referred to in the report is the family of his maternal uncle Yashpal Kumar, who looks after the business on behalf of the complainant's father. The blue delivery van and the white Ambassador car referred to in the report, it is said, are owned by the said factory, which is asserted to be the only factory of its kind in village Saibana. 9. That, as the managing partner of the factory, the complainant is required to visit the factory premises very often and in that way he has picked up good relationship with the local people. He also enjoys enough reputation in their estimation. But the imputations made in the impugned report, according to the complainant, have lowered him and the family in the estimation of the people. 10. The learned Chief Metropolitan Magistrate having taken cognizance of the offence after examining the complainant and his witness, the petitioners have come up in revision before this Court for quashing the proceeding. 11. Mr. But the imputations made in the impugned report, according to the complainant, have lowered him and the family in the estimation of the people. 10. The learned Chief Metropolitan Magistrate having taken cognizance of the offence after examining the complainant and his witness, the petitioners have come up in revision before this Court for quashing the proceeding. 11. Mr. Dipankar Ghosh the learned Counsel appearing in support of the petition, contended that the complainant not being the party aggrieved within the meaning of S. 199(1) of the Code of Criminal Procedure and no imputation having been made against him in the impugned report as provided by S. 499 of the Indian Penal Code, the petition of complaint filed by him was absolutely incompetent and since it would amount to clear abuse of the legal process to keep such a proceeding alive, it was liable to be quashed. 12. Mr. Somraj Dutt, the learned Counsel appearing for the complainant-opposite party contended, on the other hand, that the complainant Suman Kumar Narula was a person aggrieved within the meaning of S. 199 Cr.P.C. and serious imputations having been made against him in the report the case under complaint should be allowed to be decided on its merits by the learned Magistrate and there was absolutely no reason for its being quashed. 13. Coming now to the rival contentions of the parties, S. 199(1) of the Code puts a ban on any Court from taking cognizance of an offence of defamation except upon a complaint made by some person aggrieved by the offence. The question thus raised by Mr. Ghosh is very vital and it is clear that unless the complainant is a person aggrieved within the moaning of the section, cognizance of the offence taken by the learned Chief Metropolitan Magistrate in the instant case, would be totally incompetent and prima facie without jurisdiction. 14. It was contended by Mr. Ghosh that a reading of the petition of complaint will show that if there is any imputation against anybody in the offending report it is against the complainant’ maternal uncle Yashpal Kumar and his family and since, the complainant is not a member of the said family, he under no circumstances, could be said to be a person aggrieved particularly when there is no imputation against him. 15. 15. Now, even if we forget for the time being that the concept of a family in India is not as narrow as including merely the husband, the wife and the children, the complaint, in our view, is still a person aggrieved within the meaning of S. 199(1) of the Code if the offending report is properly read in the context of the statements made in the petition of complaint. 16. The petition of complaint, as already seen, shows clearly that the complainant is the Managing Partner of Sri Durga Fire Works, the only factory of its kind situated in village Saibana. That the said factory owns the two vehicles as described in the report. That the part of the offending report which appeared in the issue of the daily dated May 18, 1983 and the sketch plan of the area annexed thereto, clearly show that some anti-social, under the control of the ill-famed non-Bengali family, brought the two young-men Sanjib and Tirthankar in the factory premises of Sri Durga Fire Works by the blue delivery van wherefrom they were transshipped to the white Ambassador car which took them to Pandua. 17. Thus, according to the disclosures made in the report the two vehicles, as fully described therein and which. According to the petition of complaint belong to Sri Durga Fire Works of which the complainant is the managing partner, were used for abducting Sanjib and Tirthankar with the object of eliminating them. 18. In this connection, Mr. Ghosh's contention was that since there was no indication that the vehicles were used in the manner as stated, with the concurrence or convenience of the owners thereof, the complainant had no reasons whatsoever to be aggrieved. But while making this contention the learned Counsel totally lost sight of the portion of the report as extracted in paragraph 22 of the petition of complaint wherein it has been specifically alleged that the driver, who drove the white Ambassador car by which Sanjib and Tirthankar were taken to Pandua from the factory at village Saibana, has been removed by its owners from service and has been sent back home after giving him substantial amount of money so that he may not disclose anything. 19. This part of the report, in our view, clearly involves the owners of the vehicles with the alleged diabolical murder of the two young men. 19. This part of the report, in our view, clearly involves the owners of the vehicles with the alleged diabolical murder of the two young men. According to the petition of complaint, Sri Durga Fire Works of Saibana is the owner of the vehicles and the complainant as its managing partner, as such, has sufficient reasons to be aggrieved at the imputation which is very serious in nature and exposes him to a criminal liability of a very grave nature, particularly when under the orders of the Supreme Court the incident is going to be probed further. 20. We would like to make it clear that so far the merits of the case are concerned, it is for the learned Magistrate to go into the allegations and decide whether the allegations so made re sufficient to bring home the charge against the accused persons under S. 500 IPC. We have only gone into the questions whether the complainant is personally aggrieved within the meaning of S. 199(1) Cr.P.C. and whether there are sufficient imputations against him as S. 499 of the IPC requires and we have answered both those points in the affirmative. It is needless to say that the imputations made will harm the complainant's reputations as the firm's managing partner unless these are ultimately proved to be correct. 21. That being so, we are of the view that the petition of complaint requires to be further probed and cannot be thrown out at threshold. 22. The revisional application for quashing the proceeding as such, is dismissed on contest and the Rule issued is discharged. 23. The records along with a copy of this order be sent down as expeditiously as possible. 24. While parting we may observe that of late there has been tendency to usurp judicial functions at other levels and that too while the matters are still in the hands of the concerned authorities. The object obviously is to play with public sentiments, which undoubtedly is a dangerous thing. In the instant case too, the report of the private detective agency which has been published with a lot of fanfare, can obviously serve no other useful purpose besides prejudicing the public mind. The guilty should obviously be punished but let the task remain in the hands of the judiciary. In the instant case too, the report of the private detective agency which has been published with a lot of fanfare, can obviously serve no other useful purpose besides prejudicing the public mind. The guilty should obviously be punished but let the task remain in the hands of the judiciary. Finding some persons guilty of some charge outside the judicial forum and making such judgments public before actual trial is held or in course of it, is undoubtedly not a healthy practice and can never be congenial to the public interest. Gobinda Chandra Chatterjee, J. : I agree with the observations as made above by Mr. Lord excepting the observations made in the last paragraph. I am afraid, it will not be just and proper for me to adhere to the observations of the like as made in the ally seeing that the entire matter is yet sub judice. Application dismissed.