SHAMIM REHMANEY Vs. ZINAT DEHALVI

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE contempt jurisdiction of this Court has been invoked by a young woman called Shamim Rahmani, aged about 22 years, who was convicted of murder and sentenced Under Section 302 IPC to life imprisonment by the District and Sessions Judge of Lucknow. Her appeal is still pending in this Court so that no final opinion about her guilt could be expressed or published just now. But, the three opposite parties, who jointly edit a women's magazine in Urdu, called Bano, have, it is alleged, printed and published a highly coloured version after distorting and even inventing what is not on record and purporting to reveal what the applicant's real motive was after assuming that she was the murderess.

(2.) THE applicant's case had attracted considerable publicity. It appears to have given rise to speculations as to whether she, after having fallen in love with Dr. Gautam, a married man with a wife and three children, had really shot him dead. It appears that the learned Sessions Judge had accepted the prosecution case that the gun with which Dr. Gautam was alleged to have been shot was used by the applicant Shamim Rahmani to shoot Dr. Gautam. Her plea as an accused was that she was not present at the actual place where the murder of Dr. Gautam was committed. Her statement was that she was, during the night of the murder, asleep in her mother's room and did not know how or by whom Dr. Gautam was shot.

(3.) THE article complained of is headed: "shamim Rahmani Ki Kahani. " It begins by mentioning that two shots were heard in Kandhari Bazar, Lucknow, a shriek was let out and a man fell down on the ground and died. Such a statement could only be made by an actual witness of the occurrence. It appears that there is no witness in the case who alleged having seen any such occurrence taking place. The article proceeds to mention that the police had made one Kalika, a young tailor and his friend Ram Krishan Tewari, who was conversing on the road, as "eye witnesses of the murder". But, immediately after that, we find that, according to their statements, they only heard gun fire and also overheard the mother of Shamim Rahmani questioning her daughter and the daughter saying: