TATA PRESS LTD Vs. MAHANAGAR TELEPHONE NIGAM LTD

JUDGEMENT

(1.) A. M. BHATTACHARJEE, C. J. :- The main question involved in this case is whether the Tata Press Yellow Pages' is a 'list of 'telephone Subscribers' or, a Telephone Directory' within meaning of Rule 458 of the Indian Telegraph Rules, 1951. An affirmative answer will warrant dismissal of this appeal, ) whereas a negative answer will lead us to allow the appeal and set aside the impugned " judgment assailed therein.

(2.) IN this very Court Room, about four decades ago an appeal was heard by the Division Bench presided over by Chief Justice 1 Chagla. The case related to gold-topped " fountain pens and the Customs had contended that gold-topped fountain pens were gold, nevertheless, and, therefore, duty was to ' be levied upon them, not as fountain pens, but as gold. The duty on the latter was very much higher than on the former. Chief Justice Chagla requested the Advocate-General to hand up to him a specimen-of the gold-topped fountain pen which the Customs had adjudged as gold and the learned Chief Justice took the pen in his hand and asked the Advocate-General as to what he would call the object which the Chief Justice was holding in his hand. The Advocate-General had to reply that the Chief Justice was holding a fountain pen and to that the learned Chief Justice said that that was the whole of the case and would conclude the matter. The appeal was accordingly disposed of by the learned Chief Justice, who was not at all required to go into the intricacies of the Customs Act, into such fine points as to what is gold and what is not, and so on and so forth interminably.

(3.) WE have heard very interesting arguments advanced by Mr. Nariman appearing for the appellants, Tata Press Ltd. , Mr. Venugopal appearing for Respondent No. 1, Mahnagar Telephone Nigam Ltd. , and Mr. Jetley appearing for Respondent No. 2, Union of India. As usual, a large number of precedents have been piled up along with a number of Law Lexicons in order to understand the denotation and connotation of the expressions "list of Telephone Subscribers" and Telephone Directory". The two expressions, not having been defined in the Indian Telegraph Act and the Rules made thereunder, we would have to go by the plain meaning of these plain English words. We have reminded ourselves of the classic observations of Justice Vivian Bose in Seksaria Cotton Mills AIR 1953 SC 278 at 281-282 to the following effect: