JUGAL KISHORE DHAR Vs. EMPEROR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The appellant in this case, one Brojendra Nath Gupta, is the editor, printer and publisher of the daily paper "Advance." He has been convicted under Section 4, Ordinance 5 of 1930, read with Section 109, I. P.C., and sentenced to pay a fine of Rs. 1,000, in default six weeks rigorous imprisonment. The ease against him was that he published in a certain issue of his paper the notice which forms the subject of the charge. By this notice the students are asked to concentrate on peaceful picketing in front of the Presidency and Bethune Colleges and the Burabazar area. The notice is signed by one Basanti Devi. The sole point which has been argued before me is that what is described as peaceful picketing does not come within the definition of molestation as defined in Section 3, Ordinance 5 of 1930.

(2.) The section runs as follows: For the purpose of this Chapter a person is said to molest another person who, with a view to cause such other person to abstain from doing or to do any act which such other person has a right to do or abstain from doing obstructs or uses violence or intimidates such other person or any one in whom such person is interested or loiters at or near a house where such person or anyone in whom such person is interested resides or works or carries on business or happens to be or persistently follows him from place to place or interferes with any property owned or used by him or deprives him of or hinders him in the use thereof.

(3.) The argument before me has centred round the word "cause" and the contention seems to be that "cause" in the ordinance does not bear its usual meaning but implies something like coercion, force or intimidation of some kind.