KOCHU MOIDEEN Vs. NAMBEESAN

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is a petition for taking action against the respondents, 12 in number, for contempt of court.

(2.) The petitioner is a bus operator. One of his buses was involved in an accident in front of the Cranganore Police Station on 10-11-1957 as a result of which a child died. Immediately a case was taken up by the Police and investigation started. About 45 minutes after the accident certain persons formed themselves into an unlawful assembly and burned the bus. In connection with it another case was registered in the Cranganore Police Station. One T. K. Vijayan was an accused in it. The accused in that case were arrested and later released on bail.

(3.) In the issue dated 13-11-1967 of the daily newspaper, EXPRESS, of which the 8th Respondent is the Editor, Printer and Publisher and the 9th Respondent the local correspondent, a statement of the 11th Respondent who is the Secretary of the Trichur District S.S.P. Committee was published. In it there was a suggestion that the petitioner and his companions were trying to falsely implicate in the case connected with the burning of the bus his old political rivals, that T. K. Vijayan was really one who was at the time of occurrence trying to pacify the mob that had collected near the bus and that he was got assaulted by the undesirable persons present there. The intention behind the statement was to show that T. K. Vijayan was really innocent in the affair.