E U K GUTHRIE (OR SEN) Vs. EMPEROR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Mrs. Elizabeth Guthrie or Sen and H.N. Chatterjee, respectively the editor and the printer and publisher of a small weekly newspaper called "The Sketch" published at Dhanbad, appeal against their convictions under Section 500 of the Indian Penal Code on two charges of defamation and their sentences of fine.

(2.) It was admitted by appellants that articles headed "Curious Conduct of Police Sub-Inspector-Interesting Revelations" and "Facing the Music-By a Piping Jenny" appearing in Nos. 35 and 36 respectively of "The Sketch" dated August 8 and 15, 1932, are defamatory of the complainant, a Sub-Inspector of Police and the defence was that the statements made are true in substance and were made in good faith for the public good. The first appellant, who is 40 years of age and who landed in India for the first time (as is stated at the Bar) with her five children, several weeks after the statutory declaration by the second appellant on December 1931, and the start of "The Sketch", holds herself out as responsible for the articles which had their origin in the prosecution of her husband, a lecturer at the School of Mines, on the report dated June 8, of the Sub-Inspector, on a charge of cycling at night without a light in Dhanbad and his conviction on August 3, 1932. The matter of the articles and the English in which they are written would seem to indicate that they are not her own composition and it may be that she is only a dummy editor. But, this point, if it is of any value, does not fall to be considered in this appeal.

(3.) The claim of the first appellant to be a European British subject and to be tried in accordance with the provisions of Chap. XXXIII of the Code of Criminal Procedure having been allowed, the Magistrate committed both accused to the Sessions. Under Section 446, the Court of Session is to try the case as if the accused had claimed to be tried in accordance with the provisions of Section 275 under which: a majority of the jury shall, if the accused, Before the first juror is called and accepted so requires, consist, in the case of a European British subject, of persons who are Europeans or Americans, and the case of an Indian British subject, of Indians.