SATYARANJAN BAKSHI Vs. KING-EMPEROR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is an appeal by two persons named Satyaranjan Bakshi and Pulin Behary Dhar, who have been, convicted by the learned Chief Presidency Magistrate of Calcutta under Section 124A, I.P.C., and sentenced as follows; namely, the appellant 1 to suffer rigorous imprisonment for a period of three months and to pay a fine of Rs. 300 and, in default, to undergo one month's rigorous imprisonment and appellant 2 to pay a fine of Rs. 250 and, in default, to suffer rigorous imprisonment for two months. Appellant 1 is the editor and appellant 2 is the printer of a newspaper published in Calcutta called the "Forward." They were charged under Section 124A, I.P.C., for having brought or having attempted to bring into hatred or contempt and for having excited or having attempted to excite disaffection towards the Government established by law in British India, by editing, printing and publishing respectively an article entitled "Anarchy" "in Pabna in the issue of the Forward newspaper dated the 7 July 1926.

(2.) The article in question will have to be dealt with in detail later on. But it may be observed at this stage that, according to the learned Chief Presidency Magistrate, the first paragraph of the article contains a sneer at Government and at the services through which it works. The second paragraph is described by the learned Magistrate as an attack on the policy of the then Acting Governor of Bengal and, in his opinion, it contains a sneer at the impartiality of the bureaucracy; and the third paragraph, which is the final paragraph, is to the effect, according to the learned Magistrate, that the Governor or the Acting Governor takes his cue from the Government in Whitehall, where the Hindu-Moslem strife is a trump card in the hands of the British Imperialists and that the bureaucracy here know what policy they are expected by the Parliament to follow. The offending article, as stated above, was published on the 7 July 1926, at a time when a serious outbreak of lawlessness had taken place in the district of Pabna.

(3.) It is argued, on behalf of the appelants, first, that the article read as a whole and given a fair meaning, is not seditious within the mischief of Section 124A, I. P. C. ; secondly, that if it is alleged that there is in the article an imputation of motive, the motive, such as is to be discerned in it is a motive attributed to Parliament and the British Foreign Office and that, if that is so, it is not an offence under Section 124A, I. P. C., read with Section 17 thereof ; thirdly, that the learned Magistrate was clearly in error in admitting in evidence articles published in the Forward" newspaper on dates sub-sequent to the 7 July 1926, and, lastly, that the sentences imposed on the appellants are out of all proportion, if they should be found guilty of having committed an offence punishable under Section 124A, I. P. C.