SUKANTA HALDAR Vs. STATE

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The two Petitioners were convicted under Section 292 of the Indian Penal Code by a Presidency Magistrate, Calcutta, and each of them was sentenced to pay a fine of Rs. 100 in default to simple imprisonment for three weeks.. The book "Galpa Sankalan" was also directed to be proscribed and withdrawn from circulation. The present Rule is directed against this order of conviction and sentence and the forfeiture of the books.

(2.) The book "Galpa Sankalan" which is the subject matter of the present prosecution is a collection of stories from a periodical "Nara Nari". The Petitioner No. 1. Sukanta Kumar Haldar is the editor of this periodical "Nara Nari" which is published from the Nara Nari Publishing concern at No. 26/1, Sashi Bhusan Dey Street. The Petitioner No. 2 Kali Sankar Bagchi is the declared printer of the Indian Directory Press at 38A Masjidbari Street. The prosecution case is that the book "Galpa Sankalan" was edited and published by the Petitioner Sukanta Kumar Haldar and printed from the Indian Directory Press at 38A Masjidbari Street by the Petitioner Kali Sankar Bagchi, who was the declared printer. The book itself is ext. II Sub-Inspector S.R. Das Gupta of the Detective Department of the Calcutta Police, searched the office of Nara Nari Publishing concern and seized several issues of "Nara Nari" and a rent receipt showing the tenancy in respect of the office room of "Nara Nari" Publishing concern to be in the name of Sukanta Kumar Haldar. That the volumes of "Nara Nari" were seized in the manner indicated above does not seem to be in dispute at all. The defence of the Petitioners appears to be that the book in question is not an obscene publication and as such, is not indictable. This is a general defence raised against the prosecution with respect to the book and the particular objection that is taken with respect to the trial is that the prosecution having founded the charge in respect of the entire book without specifying the particular passages which were supposed to be obscene, the whole charge is vague and indefinite. On behalf of the Petitioner No. 2 it was also suggested that the evidence in the case does not conclusively prove that he was the printer of the impugned book.

(3.) It is stated that the stories appeared in the magazine "Nara Nari" in the year 1.940. They were not considered objectionable then. Mr. Dutt, therefore, argues that the compilation of the same stories in a book form will not make them any more objection able than what they were in 1940. Mr. Haridev Chatterjee, a very Senior and experinced advocate, appearing on behalf of the State has drawn my attention to the caseKirodh Chandra, Hoy Cliowdhury v. Emperor,1911 ILR(Cal) 39 377 where in connection with certain objectionable passages appearing in a religious book or a classical work, it was held that if objectionable passages in a religious book are extracted and printed separately, the tendency of such publication would be to deprave and corrupt those whose minds are open to immoral influences. I accept the argument. A stray passage or a stray story occasionally thrown into a magazine might escape the attention of persons who read them, but to collect such stories together and publish them in book form is certainly bound to excite a particular feeling in the minds of the readers. Think of certain passages being abstracted from the Mahabharata and the works of Shakespear and published together in book form for the consumption of impressionable youths. I cannot think that the compiler could have had any other object in his mind than the one which is made punishable under the law.