S C TYAGI Vs. N C GUPTA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS case came to us on a reference made by the learned District and Sessions Judge. Saharanpur under the Contempt of Courts Act. 1971. The brief facts of the case are that Shri N. C. Gupta is the editor and Shri Surendra Pandit is the proprietor of the Hindi Newspaper "vidambana" published from Hartfwar and Dehradun.

(2.) THE editorial dated 11-4-1972 of the "vidambana" contained wild allegations about the Judges and Lawyers in this country and used vitunerative language, Hence, the learned District and Sessions Judge made a reference to this Court for taking such action as may be deemed proper against the publisher and the editor of the paper.

(3.) THIS Court issued notices to the two contemners, who filed affidavits and they were also present before us today at the time of the hearing of the case. We perused the original editorial published in the newspaper "vidambana" dt. 11-4-1972 and also the affidavits filed by the contemners offering their defence. So far as contemner No. 2. namely Shri Surendra Pandit (Surendra Kumar Sharma) is concerned he averred in his affidavit that Shri N. C. Gupta alone was responsible for the editorial which appeared in the newspaper; that he exercised exclusive control over the editorial written in the paper and that the deponent, who was merely a Sanrakchhak (Patron), did not share the duty of either editing the newspaper or otherwise managing it. He also offered his unqualified apology for the leading article, which had been published in the paper, Considering the apology tendered by Shri Surendra Kumar Sharma we do not think that it will be expedient to punish him for contempt, even though he may not be right in completely disowning any connection with this newspaper. We examined Shri N. C. Gunta in this Court and in his statement he threw the entire responsibility on Shri Surendra Kumar Sharma. However, it is not necessary for us to probe into this matter further, as we are satisfied that Shri Sharma is really remorseful for the publication of an article of this nature in the newspaper "vidambana". We, therefore, accept his apology and discharge him.