EMPEROR Vs. ATMARAM AND GOVIND

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Section 12, Clause (a) of the Bombay City Police Act, under which the order in dispute purports to have been issued, invests the Commissioner of Police with authority to issues such orders as he may deem expedient "relating, among other objects, to the "discipline and general government of the Bombay Police Force. The words "as he may deem expedient" give the Commissioner a wide discretion, which is in express words limited by but two restrictions. First, any order he issues is "subject to the control of the Governor in Council"; and, secondly, the order must relate to "discipline and general government of the force." r If it so relates, it is a lawful order and the only authority that can in that case interfere with the Commissioner's discretion is the Governor in Council. Whether an order of the kind now in question relates to "discipline and general government of the force" must be determined with reference to the language of the section itself and where that language is ambiguous, with reference to the scheme and policy of the Act apparent from its other sections and the relation in which every member of the Police force subordinate to the Commissioner stands towards him, so far as that relation is constituted by the Act itself. The first thing to bear in mind with reference to that is that the direction and supervision of the Police force is vested in the Commissioner ( Section 5). He is the controlling or commanding authority of the force. Next, the object for which the force is maintained is obviously "the protection of the inhabitants and for the security of property" ( Section 10). Having regard to this object, the Legislature has enacted in Section 12, in which the words which we have to construe occur, that the Commissioner is competent to issue suchorders as he may deem expedient relating to "the discipline and general government of the force". These words, standing by themselves, may be understood to apply to the regulation of the general conduct of the men subjected to the discipline. They may be construed to embrace the regulation of their private conduct, religious attitude, moral disposition and so forth. But as the words occur in Clause (a) they do not standalone. They are associated with other words and "one of the safest guides to the construction of sweeping general words, which it is difficult to apply in their full literal sense, is to examine other words of like import in the same instrument and to see what limitations must be imposed on them. If it is found that a number of such expressions have to be subjected to limitations or qualifications and that such limitations or qualifications are of the same nature, that forms a strong argument for subjecting the expression in dispute to a like limitation or qualification" (Blaokwood V/s. The Queen (1882) 8 App. Cas. 82. p. 94.) Clause (a) of Section 12 requires that the order contemplated by the section should relate to "the recruitment, instruction, classification " of the Police force and then follow the words "discipline and general government of the force." Recruitment means the admission of men into the force in the capacity of Police officers. When admitted they have to be organised, instructed and classified for police work. All these are objects appertaining to the capacity of the men as police officers. If then these words have to be limited to that capacity, the words discipline and general government" must be likewise limited.

(2.) The Order, therefore, which the Commissioner is competent to issue under the head of discipline and general government must be one having reference to the conduct of the Police officers in their capacity as such officers. Over their conduct in other relations of life his disciplinary power does not extend, so long as no element or question of their police capacity enters into those relations. If it does enter, the controlling authority of the Commissioner conies into play and it becomes a matter of police discipline. For instance, every subject of His Majesty has a right to do as he likes so long as he docs not thereby violate the laws of the land. That right every Police officer has in common with other subjects. But if the doing of a lawful thing, which he has a right to do, brings his right as a private citizen into conflict with his duty as a policeman, the question becomes one of police discipline.

(3.) These are the considerations by means of which the validity of the order now in dispute must be tested. What led to that order was that a large number of Police officers contemplated holding a meeting to discuss the question of the adequacy of their salaries. It is true that if they had so met and discussed, they would have in one sense been exercising their right lawfully as private citizens; but all the same the question, to discuss which the meeting would have been called, would have been one into which, appertaining, as it did, to their capacity as Police officers, the element of their relation to the Police Department and to the Commissioner of Police as their head and controlling authority would have entered. Accordingly, the Commissioner prohibited them from "calling or attending a meeting to discuss any subject connected with the Police force" without his permission. The order did not prohibit them from holding or attending any or every meeting, whatever its purpose. It did not interfere or purport to interfere with any of their private rights, pure and simple; no civic relations of theirs as such were directly affected by it. The object was not to deprive them of their private right but regulate their conduct in their police capacity. Such regulation would not be illegal merely because of its effect on their private right. It was only an accident that a private right was hit at by the order; but its immediate purpose was the control of the men as Police officers. The discussion of a subject connected with the police force may not, it is true, necessarily mean sitting in judgment on the merits of the police administration; there may be no spirit of defiance to the authority of the Commisssioner in it; it may be discussion of a perfectly peaceful and friendly character; but if, for all police purposes and in all police matters, the law says that they are subject to the control of the Commissioner, it is impossible to dissociate the police capacity of such officers from their private capacity and hold that they are in a body meeting for such discussion in the latter capacity alone."If anything relating to the police enters as an element into the discussion, it becomes a matter connected with their police capacity and it is none the less so because they can hold the discussion in another capacity. And once that capacity enters as an element into the action of a Police officer, he becomes subjeet to the disciplinary jurisdiction of the Commissioner, albeit the officer occupies another, which is a private capacity, also.