S MULGAOKAR Vs. UNION OF INDIA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The matter before us arises out of a publication in the Indian Express newspaper dated 13th December, 1977. Some people perhaps believe that attempts to hold trials of everything and everybody by publications in newspapers must include those directed against the highest Court of Justice in this country and its pronouncements. If this is done in a reasonable manner, which pre-supposes accuracy of information about a matter on which any criticism is offered, and arguments are directed fairly against any reasoning adopted, I would, speaking for myself, be the last person to consider it objectionable even if some criticism offered is erroneous. In Bennett Coleman and Co. v. Union of India, 1973-2 SCR 757 at pp. 828-29 : (AIR 1973 SC 106 at pp. 149-50). I had said (at p. 828 of SCR) : (at p. 149 of AIR) :

(2.) I find, however, that goes distortions of what was actually held by this Court in what is known as the Habeas Corpus case (Additional District Magistrate, Jabalpur v. S. Shukla AIR 1976 SC 1207) are being made presumably to serve ulterior objects. Some of these distortions have been exposed by me in a separate statement of detailed reasons which place on record my difference of opinion with the order ultimately passed by a majority in this Court upon a case resulting from a news item published in the Times of India recently. I have, unfortunately, now to take notice of a much milder publication in the Indian Express newspaper in which the following sentence occurs about the supposed code of judicial ethics named wrongly to have been drafted by some Judges of the Supreme Court:

(3.) Judges of this Court were not even aware of the contents of the letter before it was sent by me as Chief Justice of India to Chief Justices of various High Courts suggesting, inter alia, that Chief Justices could meet and draft a code of ethics themselves or through a Committee of Chief Justice so as to prevent possible lapses from the path of rectitude and propriety on the part of Judges. The error of the assumption that Judges of the Supreme Court had any hand in drafting a code which I could have had at the back of my mind when I sent my suggestions to Chief Justices of High Courts was pointed out to the Editor of the Indian Express in a letter sent by the Registrar of this Court. No question of disowning the supposed code by any judge could, in the circumstances, arise. And, I had never "disowned" the suggestions made by me. The Registrar of this Court, therefore, wrote to inform the Editor of the mis-statement which ought to have been corrected. In reply, the registrar received a letter from the Editor showing that the contents of my letter of Chief Justices of High Courts, which were confidential, were known to the Editor. Instead of publishing any correction of the misstatement about the conduct of Judges of this Court, the Editor offered to publish the whole material in his possession, as though there was an issue to be tried between the Editor of the newspaper and this Court and the readers were there to try it and decide it.