GAURISHANKER Vs. BACHHA SINGH

JUDGEMENT

(1.) When the Prime Minister visited Gaya on 12 December 1937, a photograph was taken of the party assembled at the Bar Library. One of the persons in the group, which was a large one, was a Municipal Commissioner named Bachha Singh.

(2.) It is said that another Commissioner, who apparently preferred that Bachha Singh's face should not appear in the photograph where he himself appeared, persuaded the photographer to remove Bachha Singh's face from a negative and some prints were prepared in which there was a black spot where Bachha Singh should have been. The photographer has been fined Rs. 30 under Section 504, I.P.C., and the Sessions Judge of Gaya has forwarded the record of the case under Section 438, Criminal P.C., recommending that the finding and sentence should be set aside.

(3.) There is no evidence of publication to Bachha Singh, that is to say, there is no evidence to show that the photographer brandished the photograph before Bachha Singh or that he transmitted it to Bachha Singh. An agent of Bachha Singh purchased a copy from the photographer which he afterwards showed to Bachha Singh; but that is a different matter. For the offence under Section 504, it is necessary that the insult should be delivered to the person insulted with the intention that he may be there and then provoked to commit an offence; but there has been no publication of that kind here.