S. K. Das, J. - (1.) This is an appeal by special leave from the judgment an order of the then Madhya Bharat High Court, dated February 9, 1955, in Criminal Miscellaneous Application No. 2 of 1954. Originally, the appeal was filed on behalf of the State of Madhya Bharat, now substituted by the State of Madhya Pradesh. The appeal raises an important question with regard to the interpretation of S. 3(2) of the Contempt of Courts Act, 1952 (XXXII of 1952), hereinafter referred to as the Act, which repealed the earlier Contempt of Courts Act, 1926 (XII of 1926), as also the Indore Contempt of Courts Act (V of 1930), which was earlier in force in the State of Madhya Bharat.
(2.) The facts so far as they are relevant to this appeal are these. One Ganga Ram, stated to be the landlord of the respondent Revashankar, instituted a suit, which was numbered as 1383 of 1952 in the court of the Additional City Civil Judge, Indore, for ejectment and arrears of rent against Revashankar. It was stated that the suit was flied in the name of Ganga Ram and his wife Chandra Mukhi Bai. It was further alleged that one Mr. Uma Shankar Chaturvedi, a lawyer acting on behalf of Ganga Ram, advised the latter to sign the name of his wife Chandra Mukhi Bai though Chandra Mukhi Bai herself did not sign the plaint or the vakalatnama. In this suit Chandra Mukhi Bai filed an application for permission to prosecute her husband for forgery. Another application was flied by certain other persons said to be other tenants of Ganga Ram in which some allegations were made against Revashankar. On June 29, 1953, Revashankar filed a complaint against five persons for an alleged offence under S. 500, Indian Penal Code. This complaint was verified on July 13, 1953, and was registered as Criminal Case No. 637 of 1953 in the court of one Mr. N. K. Acharya, Additional District Magistrate, Indore. In that case one Mr. Kulkarni appeared on behalf of the complainant Revashankar. The accused persons appeared on August 8, 1953, through Messrs Mohan Singh and Uma Shankar Chaturvedi. An objection was raised on behalf of the accused persons to the appearance of Mr. Kulkarni as the latter's name appeared in the list of witnesses. This was followed by a spate of applications and counter-applications and on October 12, 1953, the learned Additional District Magistrate passed an order to the effect that the copies of the applications as well as of the affidavits filed by both parties should be sent to the District Judge for necessary action against the lawyers concerned. In the meantime a criminal case was started against Revashankar in the court of the Additional City Magistrate, Circle No. 2, for an alleged offence under S. 497, Indian Penal Code. The case was started on the complaint of Ganga Ram. That case was numbered as 644 of 1958. We then come to the crucial date, namely, December 17, 1958. On that date Revashankar filed an application in the court of the Additional District Magistrate who was in seizin of Criminal Case No. 637 of 1953. The application purported to be one under S. 528, Code of Criminal Procedure. This application contained some serious aspersions against the Magistrate, Mr. N. K. Acharya. The aspersions were summarised by the learned Judges of the High Court under the following four categories. The first aspersion was that from the order dated October 12, 1958 it appeared that Mr. N. K. Acharya wanted to favour Mr. Uma Shankar Chaturvedi. The second aspersion was that from certain opinions expressed by the Magistrate, Revashankar asserted that he was sure that he would not get impartial and legal justice from the Magistrate. The third aspersion was of a more serious character and it was that the Magistrate had a hand in a conspiracy hatched by M/s. Mohan Singh and Uma Shankar Chaturvedi regarding certain ornaments of Chandra Mukhi Bai with the object of involving, Revashankar, and his brother Sushil Kumar in a false case of theft of ornaments. The fourth aspersion was that Mr. Uma Shankar Chaturvedi had declared that he had paid Rs. 500 to the Magistrate through Ganga Ram. These aspersions were later repeated in an affidavit on December 21, 1953. On January II, 1954, the learned Magistrate reported the aforesaid facts to the Registrar of the Madhya Bharat High Court and prayed for necessary action against Revashankar for contempt of court. On this report the High Court directed the issue of notice to Revashankar to show cause why action should not be taken against him under the Contempt of Courts Act, 1952 and Criminal Miscellaneous Application No. 2 of 1954 was accordingly started against Revashankar. On March 3, 1954, Revashankar showed cause. The case was then heard by it Division Bench consisting of V. R. Newaskar and S. M. Samvatsar, JJ, and by an older dated February 9, 1955, the learned Judges held that by reason of the provisions in S. 3(2) of the Act the jurisdiction of the High Court was ousted inasmuch as the act complained of constituted an offence under S. 228 of the Indian Penal Code. The question for consideration in the present appeal is if the aforesaid view of the High Court is correct.
(3.) Mr. H. J. Umrigar, who has appeared on behalf of the appellant, has very strongly submitted before us that the High Court has erred in holding that the act of the respondent complained of constituted an offence under S. 228, Indian Penal Code, and the jurisdiction of the High Court was, therefore, ousted by reason of the provisions in S. 3(2) of the Act. It is necessary to read first S. 3(2) of the Act. We may state here that the corresponding section in the earlier Contempt of Courts Act, 1926 was S. 2(3) and in the judgment under consideration there is some confusion as to the correct number of the suit-section, section 3(2) of the Act is in these terms: "No High Court shall take cognizance of a contempt alleged to have been committed in respect of a Court subordinate to it where such contempt is an offence punishable under the Indian Penal Code (Act XLV of 1860)." The sub-section was considered in two decisions of this Court Bathina Ramakrishna Reddy vs. State of Madras, (1952) SCR 425 and Brahma Prakash Sharma vs. state of Uttar Pradesh, (1953) SCR l169. In the earlier case of Ramakrishna Reddy AIR 1952 SC 149 the appellant was the publisher and managing editor of a Telugu Weekly known as "Praja Rajyam". In an issue of the said paper dated February 10, 1949, an article appeared which contained defamatory statements about the stationary sub-Magistrate, Kovvur, and the point for consideration was if the jurisdiction of the High Court to take cognizance of such a case was expressly barred under S. 2(3) of the earlier Contempt of Courts Act, when the allegations made in the article in question constituted an offence under S. 499, Indian Penal Code. On behalf of the appellant it was argued that what the sub-section meant was that if the act by which the party was alleged to have committed contempt of a subordinate court constituted offence of any description whatsoever punishable under the Indian Penal Code, the High Court was precluded from taking cognizance of it. This argument was repelled and this Court said (at page 429 ): "In our opinion, the sub-section referred to above excludes the jurisdiction of High Court only in cases where the acts alleged to constitute contempt of a subordinate court are punishable as contempt under specific provisions of the Indian Penal Code but not where these acts merely amount to offences of other description for which punishment has been provided for in the Indian Penal Code. This would be clear from the language of the sub-section which uses the words "where such contempt is an offence" and does not say "where the act alleged to constitute such contempt is an offence". On an examination of the decisions of several High Courts in India it was laid down that the High Court had the right to protect subordinate courts against contempt but subject to this restriction, that cases of contempt which have already been provided for in the Indian Penal Code should not be taken cognizance of by the High Court. This, it was stated, was the principle underlying S. 2(3) of the Contempt of Courts Act, 1926. This Court then observed that it was not necessary to determine exhaustively what were the cases of contempt which had been already provided for in the Indian Penal Code; it was pointed out, however, that some light was thrown on the matter by the provision of S. 480 of the Code of Criminal Procedure which empowers any civil, criminal or revenue court to punish summarily a person who is found guilty of committing any offence under Ss. 175, 178, 179, 180 or S. 228 of the Indian Penal Code in the view or presence of the court. The later decision of Brahma Prakash Sharma (AIR 1954 SC 10) explained the true object of contempt proceedings. Mukherjea, J, who delivered the judgment of the Court said: "It would be only repeating what has been said so often by various Judges that the object of contempt proceedings is not to afford protection to Judges personally from imputations to which they may be exposed as individuals; it is intended to be a protection to the public whose interests would be very much affected if by the act or conduct of any party, the authority of the court is lowered and the sense of confidence which people have in the administration of justice by it is weakened". It was also pointed out that there were innumerable ways by which attempts could be made to hinder or obstruct the due administration of justice in courts and one type of such interference was found in cases were there was an act which amounted to "scandalising the court itself ":this scandalising might manifest itself in various ways but in substance it was an attack on individual Judges or the court as a whole with or without reference to particular cases, causing unwarranted and defamatory aspersions upon the character and ability of the Judges. Such conduct is punished as contempt for the reason that it tends to create distrust in the popular mind and impair the confidence of the people in the courts which are of prime importance to the litigants in the protection of their rights and liberties.;