SATYA RANJAN BAKSHI Vs. EMPEROR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The appellants, Satya Ranjan Bakshi and Pulin Bihari Dhar, Editor, and Printer of the newspaper "Forward" which is printed in English and published in Calcutta, have been convicted by the Chief Presidency Magistrate of Calcutta under Section 124-A, I.P.C., and sentenced to terms of six months and three months simple imprisonment respectively. They were prosecuted in connexion with an article entitled "The Uninformed" which appeared in that paper on 1 December last. The learned Chief Presidency Magistrate found that the article taken as a whole clearly refers to the Government established by law, that the words imperial bullies occurring therein refer to that Government and not to the police, and that the entire article was clearly intended to be an attack upon Government, that it was calculated and intended to bring Government into hatred and contempt, and to excite disaffection towards it. He further found that it did not come within any of the exceptions to Section 124-A.

(2.) On behalf of the appellants these findings have been challenged, and it has been urged that the article as a whole does not come within the purview of Section 124-A, that the learned Magistrate erred in construing it and interpreting it in the manner he has, and that in doing so he has relied upon isolated expressions and passages, whereas upon a true construction he should have held that it was merely an attack on the police and not upon Government. On behalf of the Crown the learned Advocate-General contended that however much ingenuity might be employed in endeavouring to explain away the language used, the article taken as a whole was plainly an attack not merely upon the police but upon the Government. The words "imperial bullies" he argued, referred to the Government and not to the police, and the warning at the end was given not to the police, but to the Government that, if they continue to employ the methods which they have recently adopted, viz., letting loose police hooligans, they will not save the British Empire from ruin.

(3.) Which of these conflicting view is correct can only be determined by an examination of the article itself. The article begins with historical reference to the time of the East India Company before the assumption by the Crown of the Sovereignty of India, and refers to various acts of oppression and repression. It then goes on apparently to refer to the mutiny period, and finally to Jallianwalla of recent memory, whose bloodstained walls and bloodstained earth testify, the article says to this day to the sovereignty of brute force.