SATYA RANJAN BAKHSHI Vs. EMPEROR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) In this case the appellants have been convicted on a charge of sedition under Section 124-A, I.P.C., in connexion with an article which appeared in the issue of 20 May 1928, of a Calcutta daily newspaper-published in Bengali and called the "Banglar Katha." The translation of the article is before us and it is headed "Barbarism in the Garb of Gentlemanliness." We have to read the article solely from the point of view of seeing whether we are satisfied by the internal evidence of the article itself that as a fact the writing or publication of the article was a successful or unsuccessful attempt to bring into hatred or contempt or to excite disaffection towards the Government established by law in British India. It does seem to me that, for the purpose of the present question, from the words used by the writer it is necessary to go into an analysis of the phrase: The Government established by law in British India.

(2.) Since the case of Queen Empress V/s. Bal Gangadkar Tilak [1897] 22 Bom. 112 was decided, various changes in form and, to some extent, in principle, have been introduced into the constitution which obtains in British India. But we have, in this case, to see whether the article is an endeavour to express disapprobation against certain measures of Government without exciting or attempting to excite hatred, contempt or disaffection or whether in one guise or another an attempt to excite hatred, contempt or disaffection towards the Government established by law in British India is a part of the purpose of the writer. The article begins by a reference to State prisoners and persons who have been in prison under certain legislation without trial by the ordinary tribunals. It makes a reference to "living burials" taking place every month in the plains of Siberia under the Czar of Russia. It goes on to say that incidents of a far-away land are taking place daily at our own doors and that, while there is no Czar in a physical form in our country, the administrative system which is going on in place of the Czar is still more terrible than the Czar. I do not think there can be any doubt that "the administrative system which is going on" is a reference to the Government established by law in British India. It is not a reference specifically to any legislation or to the exercise of any legislative function, but the Government is not the same thing as the legislature and the administrative system in India as obtaining at the present time is clearly the object of animadversion in the article. It goes on to say that barbarity is going on under the name of civilization and all its diabolic-cruelty is dancing under the mark of law; and after that it says that more terrible even than the rule of the Czar of Russia is the administration of the bureaucracy in India: This is the acme at once of barbarism and of deceitfulness.

(3.) Apart from certain exaggerated expressions about a jail being as hot as fire and a reference to self-interested lying, spies, we come to certain sentences which show the standpoint of the article for our present purpose. It says that even if the State prisoners had been convicted after an open trial, the writer would not have approved of the sentences. The reason given is that: no country has the right to fetter another country to satisfy the thirst for pillage.