EMPEROR Vs. MSADHIKARI

JUDGEMENT

(1.) These are applications in revision in which eight accused were convicted of an offence under Section 17(1) of the Criminal Law Amendment Act of 1908.

(2.) The accused do not dispute that they were members of a procession which was proceeding along a street in Bombay on October 16. Their case is that the procession was of a religious character and not of a political character.

(3.) The way the case is put against them is that by a notification in the Official Gazette the Akhil Bharat Prabhat Feri Sangha was declared an unlawful association, and that one of its objects--as far as I know its only object--was to control processions of a political character which took place in the early mornings, and that the procession of which the accused were members was, in fact, of a political character, and that therefore the persons taking part in it were assisting the operations of the unlawful association, the Akhil Bharat Prabhat Feri Sangha, and thus committing an offence under the said section.