MADHU LIMAYE MADHU LIMAYE Vs. SUB DIVISIONAL MAGISTRATE MONGHYR:VED MURTI

JUDGEMENT

(1.) During the hearing of these petitions the constitutional validity of Section 144 and Chapter VIII of the Code of Criminal Procedure was challenged and this Special Bench was nominated to consider the issue. Lengthy arguments were addressed to us by the petitioner and several interveners. The matter, as we shall show later, lies in a narrow compass. At the end of the arguments we announced our conclusion that the said provisions of the Code, properly understood, were not in excess of the limits laid down in the Constitution, for restricting the freedoms guaranteed by Art. 19 (1) (a), (b), (c) and (d). We reserved our reasons and now we proceed to give them.

(2.) We are required to test the impugned provisions against the first four sub-clauses of the first clause of the nineteenth article. We may accordingly begin by reading the subclauses:

(3.) As a result we are not required to read the former cl. (2) which never existed. Clauses (2), (3) and (4) were further amended by the insertion of the words "The sovereignty and integrity of India" in each of them, by S. 2 of the Constitution (Sixteenth Amendment) Act 1963. The clauses as they exist today read: