GIRIJA SUNDAR CHAKRAVARTI Vs. EMPEROR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is an appeal in what is known as the "Banda Mataram" press confiscation case. We admitted the appeal without hearing the application for admission, as the case is the first under the new statute, and it was desirable that the scope and effect of the Act and its bearing on the facts of the present case should receive judicial consideration after full discussion by both parties at the Bar. We have now had the advantage of a very able and temperate argument from the learned vakil for the appellant, Babu Dasarathi Sanyal, and a vigorous and well reasoned reply by the learned Advocate-General.

(2.) We do not propose to go into all the cases cited before us on the subject of abetment by incitement, since those cases are concerned with the criminal liability and intention of persons under various statutes enacted to punish individuals for words and conduct therein declared unlawful. In the case of those individuals the intention and knowledge of the accused person is necessarily involved: In the present case our task is much simpler. The order is not one against any person; it is purely restrictive and directed against the use of a certain printing press, which, in the opinion of the Magistrate, on application made by order of, or under authority of, the Local Government under Section 3 of the Act (VII of 1908), has been used or is intended to be used for the purpose of printing or publishing a newspaper containing any incitement to murder or to any offence under the Explosive Substances Act (VI of 1908) or to any act of violence.

(3.) On this enactment no question of the intention of the writer, printer or publisher arises, and no personal criminality is imputed to any individual. It is a simple question of fact whether the newspaper printed and published by the press in question does contain any incitement as above set out. In this case a conditional order under Section (3), Clause (1), was issued by the Presidency Magistrate, on the 23 October 1908, declaring the printing press used for printing the newspaper, known as the "Bande Mataram" at 2-1, Creek Row, or found upon the said premises, and all copies of such newspaper, to be forfeited to His Majesty, and calling upon all persons concerned in the said printing press to appear before the Magistrate, on the 30 October, to show cause why the order should not be made absolute.