PRAHLAD PRASAD MAHROTRA Vs. CHANDRA BHUSAN

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is an application in contempt. At the instance of the petitioner, Prahlad Prasad Mahrotra, a rule was issued upon the opposite party, Shri Chandra Bhusan who was the editor, printer and publisher of a journal called "Shola" to show cause why he should not be committed for contempt of Court.

(2.) The petitioner stated the following facts in his petition. In the month of February last there was a tense atmoshphere prevailing in the town of Muzaffarpur in the course of an electioneering campaign for a seat in the Bihar Legislative Assembly from Muzaffarpur urban constituency, and the petitioner came across a letter bearing the signature of one Ramavatar Shastri addressed to one P. Ghose at Calcutta which disclosed that there was a plan for an attack on the person of a candidate who had been set up by the Indian National Congress for election. The petitioner then states that as the President of the Town Congress Committee, Muzaffarpur, he forwarded a true facsimile of that letter on the 21st February, 1957 to the Chief Secretary to the Government of Bihar without any comment but with a request to look into that matter and to take steps to ensure smooth polling. A photostat copy of the letter was published in a local daily newspaper called "the Indian Nation" and the contents thereof were also published in other journals. Then on the 22nd February, 1957, Ram-avatar Shastri filed a petition of complaint against the petitioner alleging that the latter had committed offences under Sections 600, 465 and 471 of the Indian Penal Code in respect of the aforesaid letter and denying the authorship of it. In this petition of complaint, Ramavatar Shastri alleged that the letter referred to above was a forged one and explained that his signature had been taken by some student or somebody seeking autograph and that it would appear that that signature had been utilised for the purpose of preparing that letter. The further allegation was that there was no one of the name of P. Ghose at Calcutta known to him. The contents of this petition of complaint were published in the Indian Nation and the Searchlight and in other journals in their issues dated the 23rd and 24th February, 1957.

(3.) Then on the 1st of March, 1957, the opposite party, Shri Chandra Bhusan, caused it to be published, distributed, circulated and sold throughout the town of Muzaffarpur and its suburbs as also in other towns and places an issue of his paper called "Shola", which was a Hindi journal, and in its leading article he, in course of his comments relating to the result of the election which has already been announced, said about the petitioner as follows :--