MUNICIPAL BOARD CITY BOARD Vs. SAT PAL PANDHI

JUDGEMENT

(1.) RESPONDENT S. P. Pandhi is the printer, publisher and proprietor of two Weeklies--Himachal Times (English) and Hindi Himachal Times-which are published from Mussoorie. He is a representative of the Press Trust of India at Mussoorie and is also a correspondent of a number of well established and widely circulated newspapers and journals in the country. For about a decade the proceedings of the meetings of the Municipal Board Mussoorie and its other advertisements and notices had been published by him on receipt of publication charges in his weeklies, and his father had been a nominated member of the Board and had also held for some time the office of the Senior Vice-President.

(2.) IT appears that some differences cropped up between the applicant's father on the one hand and the President of the Municipal Board on the other which ultimately led to his resignation from the Board. During the years 1962 and 1963 the respondent published a number of articles and news items in his weeklies and also to other newspapers regarding the administration of the Municipal Board which was considered by the Board as highly objectionable and damaging to its reputation. In their opinion, the publications were tendentious and likely to affect the reputation of Mussoorie as a health resort and thereby injured its interests.

(3.) ON 12th November 1963, the Board adopted a resolution naming the respondent "as person and non-grata-vis-a-vis the Municipal Board of Mussoorie" and blacklisting his two weeklies and directing that no publication work thereafter was to be made in his papers.