E M SANKARAN NAMBOORIPAD Vs. T NARAYANAN NAMBIAR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) MR. E. M. S. Namboodiripad (former Chief Minister of kerala) has filed this appeal against his conviction and sentence of Rs. 1000/-fine or simple imprisonment for one month by the High Court of Kerala for contempt of court. The judgment, February 9,1968, was by majority-MR. Justice raman Nayar (now Chief Justice) and MR. Justice Krishnamoorthy Iyer formed the majority. MR. Justice Mathew dissented. The case has been certified by them as fit for appeal to this Court under Art. 134 (1) (c) of the Constitution.

(2.) THE conviction is based on certain utterances of the appellant, when he was Chief Minister, at a Press Conference held by him at Trivandrum , on November 9,1967. THE report of the Press Conference was published the following day in some Indian newspapers. THE proceedings were commenced in the High Court on the sworn information of an Advocate of the High Court, based mainly on the report in the Indian Express. THE appellant showed cause against the notice sent to him and in an elaborate affidavit stated that the report'was substantially correct, though it was incomplete in some respects. '.

(3.) IN explaining his press conference the appellant added that it did not offend the majesty of law, undermine 'the dignity of courts' or obstruct the administration of justice. Nor did it have any such tendency. He claimed that it contained a fair criticism of the system of judicial administration in an effort to make it conform to the peoples' objective of a democratic and egalitarian society based on socialism. He considered that it was not only his right but also his duty to educate public opinion. He claimed that the statement read as a whole amounted to a fair and reasonable criticism of the present judicial system in our country, that it was not intended to be a criticism of any particular judge, his judgment or his conduct, and that it could not be construed as contempt of court. He added that he had always enforced the judgments of the courts and shown respect to the judiciary and had advocated the independence of the judiciary and decried all attempts to make encroachments upon it. Criticism of the judiciary, according to him, was his right and it was being exercised by other parties in INdia. He denied that it was for the courts to tell the people what the law was and asserted that the voice of the Legislatures should be supreme. He, however, found his party at variance with the other parties in that according to the political ideology of his party the State (including all the three limbs the Legislature, the executive and the judiciary) was the instrument of the dominant class or classes, so long as society was divided into exploiting and exploited classes, and parliamentary democracy was an organ of class oppression. He concluded that his approach to the judiciary wasc (a) the verdicts of the courts must be respected and enforced; (b) no aspersions should be cast on individual judges or judgments by attributing motives to judges; (c) criticism of the judicial system or of judges going against the spirit of legislation should be permissible; and (d) education of the people that the State (including the judiciary) was an instrument of exploitation of the majority by the ruling and exploiting classes, was legitimate. These principles, he submitted, were not transgressed by him and also summed up his observations at the press conference.