RAMLAL PURI Vs. STATE OF MADHYA PRADESH

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS order shall also govern the disposal of all the cases mentioned above. Shri ramlal Puri is the Printer and Publisher of a book, by name, "agni Pareeksha", written by Acharya Shri Tulsi, Head of the Tera-panthi school of Shwetambar Jain sect. The petitioner in the other connected case, namely, Misc. Criminal Case No. 468 of 1970, is the Jain Shwetambar Terapanthi Mahasabha, which had sponsored the publication of the book. An acknowledgment of that fact is made in the book itself. The petitioners in the last named petition namely Amar-chand and others are the followers of Jain religion belonging to the Terapanthi sect of Shwetambar cult. As followers of the said sect they claimed that they have a right to read the book and to recite the poems on religious occasions or even otherwise.

(2.) THESE are petitions filed by three different sects of person claiming interest in the book, "agni Pareeksha" under Section 99-B of the Code of Criminal Procedure, wherein the order of the State Government, dated 28-9-1970, published in the madhya Pradesh Gazette, dated 28-9-1970, at page 1656, passed under Section 99-A of the Code of Criminal Procedure, forfeiting to the Government all copies of the book "agni Pareeksha", is challenged on various grounds. Presently we shall have occasion to deal with those grounds.

(3.) IT may be appropriate at this stage to reproduce the entire Notification, which is as follows.-