CHANDRA DATT Vs. VIDYA PRASAD

JUDGEMENT

(1.) CRIMINAL Miscellaneous Application No. 47 of 1953 is an application by one Chandra Dat senani who calls himself a Congress worker of Pratapgarh, for action being taken for contempt of court against five persons namely, Vidya Prasad Shukla, the then District Magistrate of pratapgarh, Section P. Agarwal, Sub-Divisional Magistrate Sadar Pratapgarh, Gur Prasad, sub-Divisional Magistrate of Kunda, Pratapgarh, Kailash Narain Malviya, Inspector of Schools, pratapgarh and Rameshwar Prasad Gupta, Jailor District Jail, Pratapgarh.

(2.) THE application contains much Irrelevant matter. The relevant facts are very few. There were several cases pending against the applicant in the criminal courts at Pratapgarh and there Were also some cases which were instituted by him against the local officials. The applicant was in jail. He applied through the Superintendent of the Jail for transfer of the cases in which he was concerned. The application for transfer is dated the I7th April, 1952, and is addressed to the chief Justice, Allahabad High Court. In this application certain allegations were made against sri Vidya Prasad Shukla, District Magistrate, Pratapgarh and the Sub-Divisional Magistrate, pratapgarh, imputing to them, ulterior motives in sentencing him and putting him in prison. On the various grounds mentioned in the application, the applicant prayed that the complaint by and against. him be transferred to any nearby district preferably Lucknow for trial. He also prayed that he be released on his own. responsibility till his cases were decided by the high Court or the Supreme Court. This application was first handed over to the jailor, Sri rameshwar Prasad Gupta who in turn handed it over to the Superintendent of the jail who has not been impleaded in the present proceedings. The Superintendent of the jail forwarded it to the opposite party no. 1, Sri Vidya Prasad Shukla, who received this application on the 29th April, 1953. He wrote back to the Superintendent of the jail inquiring the rule of the Jail Manual under which the application had been forwarded to him for submission to the Hon'ble Chief Justice and pointed out that under Chapter V of the Jail Manual, only petitions of appeal and petitions for mercy can be presented and that the application in question was neither a petition of appeal nor a petition for mercy. He also mentioned that Rule 689 permitted a prisoner to send a communication to Government, or to any other Government Officer in his official capacity with a view to the redress of his grievance but that such communication should be to the point and should not contain any offensive or irrelevant matter, e. g. , a discourse on politics. He further pointed out that the application to the Hon. Chief Justice offended against this rule and under Rule 711 amounted to abuse of privilege. He added : "besides it is highly defamatory and refers to the Court of the Kunda in very undesirable language. " in the end he said :

(3.) THE case of the opposite party No. 1 is that the transfer application contained offensive and irrelevant matters, that inter alia it made mention of the Court of the Sub-Divisional Magistrate, kunda in a very disrespectful manner, that it was, therefore, against Rule 689 of the Jail Manual and that under Rule 711 of the said Manual it amounted to an abuse of privilege but that he (the opposite party No. 1) was prepared to transmit an application provided the petitioner sent it addressed in proper language fit enough for submission to the Hon'ble Chief Justice.