14.9.2026 2 sb C.R.R. 1310 of 2023 Sandeep Mukherjee & Anr. -vs- Kaushik Basu Mr. Somopriyo Chowdhury Mr. Raghav Munshi Mr. Kaushik De Ms. Mohini Majumder Ms. A. Ghosh Mr. Adrish Chatterjee Ms. Anamika Pandey … for the Petitioners Mr. Sourav Mondal Mr. Arijit Bhuiya Mr. Rony Mondal Mr. Aditya Mondal …for the Opposite party Affidavit of service filed by the petitioners is taken on record. In this application, the petitioners have prayed for quashment of the proceedings being Complaint case no. 1444 of 2022 under Sections 500/120B of the IPC, presently pending before the learned Chief Judicial Magistrate, Alipore. Being aggrieved by the aforesaid proceeding, learned counsel for the petitioners submits that the opposite party herein since the year 2007 to 2021, has siphoned funds without the knowledge of the members of the Darjeeling Tea Association (in short, DTA), since he had control over the documentation and the accounts of DTA, being the executive administrator. When the opposite party was asked to explain the reason for his non-cooperation, he suddenly by a letter dated 19.1.2021 intimated the DTA that he is unwilling to 2 work for the DTA any further and made a money claim from the DTA. Faced with such sudden withdrawal of the opposite party from the organization, the governing body of DTA resolved to conduct a special audit and certain discrepancies were found and it was also detected that huge amount of expenditure was made from the account of DTA, which were paid to the opposite party but shown in the books as reimbursement of loan from the opposite party, though no approval was given to any of the aforesaid transactions by the governing body of the DTA at any point of time. These startling revelations left no other option for the DTA but to lodge complaint against the opposite party before the appropriate public authority. Petitioner’s further case is in the meantime, opposite party resigned from the post and after receipt of the resignation letter dated 19.01.2021, the DTA accepted the resignation of the opposite party by a letter dated 25.10.2021 and as a mark of leniency towards him, DTA even offered to pay an amount of Rs. 10 lakhs to the opposite party. However, the opposite party instead of accepting such offer started illegally occupying the office of the DTA and as such, the DTA by a letter dated 25.10.2021 called upon the opposite party to vacate the office premises forthwith. Thereafter by a circular dated 18.11.2021 issued by the petitioner no. 2 being the Chairman, DTA, it was communicated to all members of the 3 DTA that the resignation of the opposite party from the position of Secretary General had been accepted by the DTA. Learned counsel further submits there is nothing stated in the said circular which may tantamount to anything which amounts to an aspersions or defamation to the opposite party. The circular simply states that the opposite party has resigned from his services with the association. He states however being aggrieved by that circular, the opposite party herein has lodged the instant complaint against the petitioners alleging that on 19.1.2021, the opposite party sent an email to the Chairman of the DTA, i.e. the petitioner no. 2 herein requesting him to clear the pending dues since the year 2017, as his remuneration was withheld for a prolonged period and towards reimbursement of several incidental expenses. On 25.10.2021, the petitioner no. 1 herein in connivance with the petitioner no. 2 sent a email to the opposite party to vacate the office premises of the DTA on the plea that he had submitted his resignation letter from the position of secretary general of DTA and thereafter vide a email dated 18.11.2021, the accused persons had circulated a false, frivolous, baseless and vexatious information causing immense damage to his reputation. Thereafter, the court below after examining the complaint, issued summon against the petitioners under Section 204 of the Code of Criminal Procedure. 4 Being aggrieved by the aforesaid proceeding, learned counsel for the petitioners further submits that order taking cognizance, order issuing process and order recording plea against the petitioners are absolutely material irregularity and grave illegality and have occasioned miscarriage of justice to the petitioners. He further submits that the circular distributed amongst the member of the DTA does not attract lowering the moral or intellectual character of the opposite party in any manner. He further submits that beside complainant only one witness was examined under section 200 of Cr.P.C. on behalf of the Opposite Party during the course of inquiry under section 202 of Cr.P.C. He further submits that the initial deposition of said witness Smt. Srabani Banerjee Pradhan, a staff of DTA, who was produced as witness by the opposite party, does not mention anything which reflects that the moral and intellectual character of the opposite party was affected in her eyes by the said circular to members dated 18.11.2021. The said witness does not even mention the date of the said circular nor did she find that the opposite party was defamed in any manner. Therefore, the instant proceeding has been attended with malafide and is a counter blast to the complain filed by the petitioner no. 1 on behalf of the DTA against the opposite party alleging the siphoning of funds, misappropriation and other criminal offences by the opposite party. Therefore, the proceeding is liable to be quashed. 5 Learned counsel for the opposite party raised objection against the submissions made on behalf of the petitioners. His specific case is that the opposite party herein performed a commendable job in the association and the concerned email dated 19.1.2021 discloses that the tendering resignation of the petitioners were conditional and he has actually requested the association to disburse his outstanding amount. Therefore, such conditional resignation can never be treated as a resignation on the part of the complainant and in this context, he relied upon a judgment of the Apex court in Dr. Prabha Atri Vs. State of U.P. and others, AIR 2003 SC 534 Therefore, by circulating the notice which contains resignation of the opposite party as Secretary General from the services of DTA dated 18.11.2021 is clearly a defamatory statement and has injured the reputation of the opposite party. Such vexatious, false and baseless circular which was published in the public domain by the petitioners, amounts to imputations and thereby clearly attracts the ingredients of offence under Section 499 of the IPC and the present case does not attract any of the exceptions mentioned in section 499 of IPC. I have considered the submissions made by the petitioners. Before going further, let me reproduce the circular dated 18.11.2025 against which the opposite party lodged the complaint against the petitioners. To: ALL MEMBERS November 18, 2021 CIRCULAR NO: 49/ 6 RESIGNATION OF SRI KAUSHIK BASU, SECRETARY GENERAL FROM THE SERVICES OF DARJEELING TEA ASSOCIATION It is hereby informed to all concerned, Kaushik Basu, Secretary General. DTA has resigned from the services of this Association. The Office of Darjeeling Tea Association at 6, N.S. Road, Kolkata Mukherjee, 700 001, would now be under Sri Sandeep Advisor, Principal of this Association henceforth. All correspondences may please be directed to him. The Official E-MAIL ID and his mobile number are under: E-MAIL ID : Darjeeling.tea.association@gmail.com MOBILE # 94340 96855 Thanks & Regards BK Saria Chairman Darjeeling Tea Association It is also worthy to be mentioned the intitial deposition of sole witness Srabani Banerjee who deposed on behalf of complainant and in whose estimation, the moral and intellectual character of the Opposite Party was allegedly lowered or affected. “……I saw a circular published by DTA wherein it was mentioned that Kaushik Bose has resigned from DTA. I was shocked to see such publication. Me and several other persons thought that there might have some fishy for which he has resigned from the post of secretary DTA. After seeing this circular, we thought he might have done something wrong and for that reason he had to resign. I doubted his credibility as secretary DTA. Several other employees also thought like me. Subsequently I came to know that he has actually resigned from the post of Secretary, DTA.” Needless to say that explanation (4) to Section 499 of the IPC is an explanation which provides:- “No imputation is said to harm a person reputation unless that imputation directly or indirectly in the estimation of others, lowers the moral or intellectual character of that 7 person or 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”. From the initial deposition of said Sabarni Banerjee it appears that she did not mention anything which reflects that the moral or intellectual character of the Opposite Party was affected in her eyes by the said circular. What she has stated in her initial deposition is that she and others assumed something fishy and the petitioner might have done something wrong for which he has resigned. It is a ridiculous proposition laid down by the said witness that whenever an employee resigns from his post, it presupposes that the he must have done something wrong for which he has resigned. Therefore first thing is that such witness did not have any basis to presume all those idea about petitioner which she stated in deposition. It is well settled that in order to constitute defamation under Section 499 of the IPC, the first essential thing is the imputation and secondly such imputation has to be made with an intention to harm the reputation of such person against whom the imputation is made. It may be that the petitioner has raised a dispute as to whether he has resigned from the post of Secretary, DTA or not and there may appear civil disputes among the parties as to whether her resignation 8 was lawfully accepted or not. But from the initial deposition of the said complainant’s witnesses and from the complaint it does not appear that any defamatory word was used against the defacto-complainant. In the case of Sarala Birla Vs. Durga Prosad Shastri, reported in 1972 India Law reports (Cal) 456 (Criminal Revision 84 of 1972) it has been clearly laid down by a Division Bench of this court that first point that is to be considered is whether the words complained of are in fact defamatory. In other words, whether they are capable of a defamatory meaning. Whether under the circumstances in which the writing was published, a reasonable man to whom the publication was made would be likely to understand it in a libelous sense. The earlier observation was relied by the Bench that we must consider what might be conveyed by the notice to a reasonable, fair-minded man and not what might be inferred from it by a man of a morbid or suspicious mind. The Bench also took notice of the words of Bret L,J. that it is unreasonable that where there are a number of good interpretations, the only bad one should be seized upon to give a defamatory sense to the document. In the instant case, the notification is harmless without any intention to malign the de facto-complainant. The essential ingredients of Section 499 of the IPC are that a imputation has to be made or published concerning the person. The word “imputation” has been defined as a direct or 9 indirect statement, sign on representation that attributes conduct, characteristics or motives to a person with the intent or knowledge that it will harm their reputation. In the instant case the sole witness in her deposition has stated that after issuing the circular, they thought that the complainant might have done something wrong and for that reason he had resigned and therefore, she doubted his credibility. A coordinate Bench of this court in the case of Smt. Kalpana Majumder Vs. The State of West Bengal & Anr. reported in 2017 SCC Online Cal 103, has held that the inference of the witness that due to such imputation, the reputation of the complainant has been lowered down in the estimation of the public is of no use to make out an offence of defamation. Same view has been taken by this court in the case of Dipankar Bagchi Vs. State of West Bengal & Anr. reported in 2009 SCC Online Cal 1877. Coming back to the present case I find that circular dated 18.11.2021 simply states that the opposite party’s resignation has been accepted by the DTA and the petitioner No.1 has given the charge to handle the office of DTA. A reasonable person cannot infer from such notification that complainant must have done something wrong and for which he has resigned. 10 Causing harm to the imputation of a person is the basis on which such offence of defamation is founded and mens rea is a condition precedent to constitute such offence Upon perusal of statement made by the witnesses before the Magistrate, I do not find anything to suggest that by circulating above-quoted notification, the petitioners had intended or known or had reason to believe that the notification circulated, would harm reputation of the complainant. Therefore, the allegations against the petitioner does not constitute the offence and on the on the contrary it appears that it is a counter blast against the allegation lodged against him by the DTA. The complaint has been lodged only to wreck vengeance against the petitioners. From the aforesaid discussion I find that the parameters laid down in sub-paragraph (i), (iii), (vii) of paragraph 102 in the case of State of Haryana & others Vs. Bhajanlal & Others, reported in 1992 supp (1) 335 clearly attracts in the present case which runs as follows:- (i) Where the allegations made in the first information report or the complaint, even if they are taken at their face value and accepted in their entirety do not prima facie constitute any offence or make out a case against the accused. (iii) Where the uncontroverted allegations made in the FIR or complaint and the evidence collected in support of the same do not disclose the commission of any offence and make out a case against the accused. (vii) Where a criminal proceeding is manifestly attended with mala fide and/or where the proceeding is maliciously instituted with an ulterior motive for wreaking vengeance on the accused and with a view to spite him due to private and personal grudge. 11 So, I find that further continuance of the impugned proceeding against the petitioners would be nothing but a mere abuse of process of the court. Therefore, the instant application being CRR 1310 of 2023 is allowed. The impugned proceeding being Complaint case no. 1444 of 2022 under Sections 500/120B of the IPC, presently pending before the learned Chief Judicial Magistrate, Alipore is hereby quashed. Urgent Photostat certified copy of this order, if applied for, be given to the parties upon compliance with all requisite formalities. (Dr. Ajoy Kumar Mukherjee, J.)