LAWS(BOM)-1945-8-8

EMPEROR Vs. RUSTAM KARANJIA

Decided On August 10, 1945
EMPEROR Appellant
V/S
RUSTAM KARANJIA Respondents

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS is an appeal by Government against the order of the Chief Presidency Magistrate of Bombay acquitting the editor and publisher of a weekly newspaper in Bombay called "blitz" of the offence under Section 27b of the Bombay Children Act (Bom. XIII of 1924 ).

(2.) ONE Dr. Talati was arrested on March 31, 1944, for ill-treating his daughter named Zarine, and charged for causing hurt to her, under Section 324 of the Indian Penal Code read with Section 9 of the Bombay Children Act. He was therefore placed before the Magistrate for remand on April 15, 1944. But before that date, a report was published in the newspaper "blitz" on April 8, purporting to be from the woman editor of that paper. In that report certain facts were stated, the substance of which was that one girl named Zarine, exactly five years of age, winsome, frail and sickly, the daughter of a Parsi medical practitioner, whose age was somewhere in the forties, was cruelly ill-treated by her father, and was lying in the ward of the Jerbai Wadia Hospital. Thereafter, the father, Dr. Talati, gave a notice to the editor of "blitz" through his advocate that he contemplated taking proceedings against the paper for publishing the report. On April 29 the notice given by the advocate was published verbatim in the paper with a note from the editor to the effect that the notice was the outcome of a report published in "blitz" about the charge against Dr. Talati, a medical practitioner, for mercilessly beating his five years old daughter, that the editor knew his business, and was perfectly aware of the legal implications of the case, and refused to be intimidated by such gratuitous warnings.

(3.) THE words ' calculated to lead to the identification' in Section 27b, which were inserted in the Bombay Children Act in 1926, seem to have been borrowed from Section 39 of the English Act known as Children and Young Persons Act of 1933, where the words are that the Court may direct that no newspaper report of the proceedings shall reveal the name, address or school, or include any particulars calculated to lead to the identification, of any child or young person concerned in the proceedings. THEre is no legal definition of the words 'calculated to lead to the identification' and we have, therefore, to go to the dictionary meaning of the word 'calculated. ' In Oxford English Dictionary the word ' calculated' is stated to mean two things: firstly, reckoned, estimated, or thought out; secondly, fitted, suited, apt, that is, proper or likely to lead. THE instance of the first kind is given as speaking with a calculated caution, and that of the second kind is given as disguises not calculated to deceive. In our opinion, the second meaning is more appropriate here, where ' calculated' is followed by the word 'to', and that also seems to us to be the intention of the Legislature. THE intention is that the future of a child should not be marred by any report which is likely to lead to its identification. Applying that test, it seams to us that the material words in the report were likely to lead to the child's identification, though not by a large section of the public, at least by the relations and friends of Dr. Talati's family. We think, therefore, that the first report of April 9 comes within the wording of the section. In any case, there is no doubt that the second report of April 29 does come within the section, because the name of the father, Dr. Minocher M. Talati, which is given in the notice given by his lawyer is published, and it is also published in the editor's note that the previous report had reference to the accused, Dr. Talati, mercilessly beating his five years old daughter with a sharp instrument. We may take it that the editor honestly thought that he was fulfilling his duties as a journalist in bringing to the notice of the public a very heinous crime committed by a medical practitioner against his own daughter. We are not, however, concerned with his motive, however laudable it may be, but with the object of the section, which aims at protecting the child against whom the offence is committed.