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Case Note: Defamation SlandersAction for abuse, no special damage being allegedDamages, measure of.The rule of English
law which prohibits, except in certain cases, an action for damages for oral defamation unless special damage is alleged, being
founded on no reasonable basis, should not be adopted by the Courts of British India.If defamatory expressions are used under
such circumstances as to induce in the plaintiff reasonable apprehension that his reputation has been injured, and to inflict on
him pain consequent on such belief, the plaintiff is entitled to recover damages without actual proof of loss sustained.Semble: An
action will not lie for vulgar abuse or hasty expressions; but for malicious or culpable oral defamation an action will lie. Vindictive
damages should not be awarded, and a distinction should be drawn in awarding damages when the defendant acts from
carelessness and when he acts maliciously. In the latter case the plaintiff is entitled to full compensation for the pain suffered,
and in the former to a sum sufficient to establish his innocence of the charges made.This was an appeal from the decree of E.K.
Krishnan, Subordinate Judge of Tinnevelly, reversing the decree of T. Adinarayana Chetti, District Munsif of Ambasamudram, in
suit 303 of 1881.The plaintiff, Parvathi Ammal, sued the defendant, Mannar Ayyar, for Rs. 1,000 damages. She alleged that, on
the 29th June 1881, defendant, with the intention of defaming her publicly, abused her at Kadambadu Valavu, in the presence of
the Village Munsif and others, by falsely declaring that she was not the legally married wife of her husband, but a woman who
had been ejected from several places for unchastity, and that her reputation had suffered thereby.The defendant denied having
used the alleged defamatory expressions, and pleaded that, even if he had used them, the occasion was privileged, inasmuch as
he wished to prevent a marriage, then imminent, between his wife's brother's son with a girl brought up by plaintiff and her
alleged husband.The defendant attempted, in his defence, to prove the identity of the plaintiff with a woman of questionable
character bearing the same name. The Munsif disbelieved the evidence and awarded the plaintiff Rs. 300 damages and Rs. 145
costs, on the ground that she was a Brahman and had been slandered publicly in the presence of the Village Magistrate and
others of her caste.On appeal the Subordinate Judge of Tinnevelly, E.K. Krishnan, reversed this decree, holding that the
defendant acted bona fide in making the imputations and trying to prevent the marriage of his kinsman with plaintiff's foster
daughter.Plaintiff appealed to the High Court.
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