TARA SINGH GOPI CHAND Vs. STATE

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THESE are four applications made on behalf of master Tara Singh against whom at the time the applications were filed two prosecutions were pending in the Court of a Special Magistrate at Karnal. The prosecutions relate each to a speech delivered by Master Tara Singh, one in July 1950 at Shahabad in the Karnal District and the other in August 1950 at Ludhiana. The prosecution in each instance was under Section 124-A and 153. A, Penal Code and Section 24 (a), Bast Punjab Public Safety Act.

(2.) TWO of the four applications are under Article 228 of the Constitution. While in each objection is taken to the legality of setting up a special Court to try the particular case, and to the trial being held in the jail at Karnal, the really substantial contention is this, that the provisions of law upon which each prosecution is founded, namely, Ss. 124 A and 153-A, Penal Code and Section 54 (a), bast Punjab Public Safety Act became invalid on the coming into force of the Constitution, as they are in restriction of the Fundamental Rights set out in Article 19 of the Constitution and are not saved by the reservations made by Clause (2) of Article 19.

(3.) THE two other applications are in terms similar to those of the two first, but purport to be made under Article 226 of the Constitution. It is admitted before us that they have been made only by way of precaution as possibly supplementary to the first. They have not been pressed separately before us, and they have no merits independent of the first applications.