On Thursday, a Court in Delhi dismissed a defamation complaint against former Maharashtra governor Bhagat Singh Koshyari in a criminal defamation case filed by a businessman, noting that the complainant had expired while his heir failed to establish that he was aggrieved by the alleged statement.

Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate Paras Dalal dismissed the complaint field by S P Gupta on an application filed by Koshyari & other accused, including former Congress MP Raashid Alvi, seeking acquittal in the case.

The Judge said, "the application filed by the accused for acquittal is allowed & disposed of. Since the complainant has since deceased & there is no aggrieved person to continue prosecution of the present complaint, the accused No. 4 (a private company) is also acquitted".

The Judge said that neither the original complaint nor the application of the legal heirs of the deceased complainant could show that they were "aggrieved person" of the offence of defamation.

According to the complaint, complainant S P Gupta was the managing director of Sunair Hotels, a private limited company, & after certain business dealings with another company, VLS Finance Ltd, turned sour & under various litigations, both parties made allegations of mismanagement, etc., against each other & were investigated by several investigating agencies, including the CBI & SFIO.

It alleged that Gupta was "pressurised by then senior ministers" on behalf of VLS Finance Ltd, while Koshiyari, Alvi & others wrote defamatory letters on behalf of the company with the intention to damage his reputation.

The Judge said that after going through the entire complaint as well as pre-summoning evidence, "this court can see that the complainant has expressed personal trauma by the alleged letters".

"However, the complainant has not alleged that the letters caused any harm to the reputation of his company or to his family. The complainant throughout his complaint has averred that attempt was made to harm the reputation of the complainant, but nowhere any grievance to his family or to his company has been stated," the judge said, holding that the legal heir was "not aggrieved".

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