Bathina Ramakrishna Reddy vs The State Of Madras

Rewritten Version Notice: This is a rewritten version of the original judgment.

Court: Supreme Court of India

Case Number: Criminal Appeal No. 13 of 1951

Decision Date: 14 February, 1952

Coram: B.K. Mukherjea, N. Chandrasekhara Aiyar, M. Patanjali Sastri, Mehr Chand Mahajan

In the matter titled Bathina Ramakrishna Reddy versus The State of Madras, the Supreme Court of India delivered its judgment on 14 February 1952. The judgment was authored by Justice B.K. Mukherjea, and the bench was composed of Justices B.K. Mukherjea, N. Chandrasekhara Aiyar, M. Patanjali Sastri and Mehr Chand Mahajan. The petitioner was Bathina Ramakrishna Reddy and the respondent was the State of Madras. The judgment is reported in the 1952 AIR 149 and 1952 SCR 425 reporter series. Citator references to this decision appear in various reports, including E 1954 SC 10 (12), F 1959 SC 102 (3), E 1971 SC 221 (15,18), R 1978 SC 727 (44) and RF 1989 SC 1 (8). The case involved the Contempt of Courts Act (12 of 1926), section 2(3), and the Indian Penal Code (45 of 1860), section 499, and raised issues concerning contempt of a subordinate court, the jurisdiction of the High Court to take cognizance, whether contempt is punishable as defamation under the Penal Code, whether that jurisdiction is ousted, and the scope and object of the Contempt of Courts Act.

The headnote explained that subsection (3) of section 2 of the Contempt of Courts Act, 1926, removes the High Court’s jurisdiction to take cognizance of contempt concerning a lower court only when the alleged contemptual acts are punishable as contempt by specific provisions of the Indian Penal Code. The provision does not remove jurisdiction where the acts are punishable as offences of a different description under the Penal Code. Consequently, although defamation of a judge of a subordinate court is an offence under section 499 of the Penal Code, that fact does not bar the High Court from treating the act as contempt of court. The headnote further observed that defamatory statements about a judge’s conduct, even when related to his judicial duties, do not automatically constitute contempt. Only when such defamation is intended to obstruct or interfere with the proper administration of justice does it amount to contempt. The headnote cited several precedents, including Kisan Krishna Ji v. Nagpur Conference of Society of St. Vincent de Paul (AIR 1943 Nag 334) which was disapproved, V.M. Bason v. A.H. Skone (ILR 53 Cal 401) which explained the principle, and a series of cases approving the approach: First Class Hoshangabad v. Jawaharlal (AIR 1940 Nag 407), Narayan Chandra v. Panchu Pramanick (ALR 1935 Cal 684), Naresh Kumar v. Umaromal (AIR 1951 Cal 489), Kaulashia v. Emperor (ILR 12 Pat 1), State v. Brahma Prakash (AIR 1950 All 556), Emperor v. Jagannath (AIR 1938 All 358) and Bennet Colman v. C.S. Monga (ILR 1937 Lah 34).

The judgment recorded that the criminal appellate jurisdiction was invoked under Criminal Appeal No. 13 of 1951. The appeal was taken by special leave from a judgment and order of the Madras High Court, rendered by Chief Justice Rajamannar and Justice Balakrishna Ayyar on 10 April 1950, in Contempt Application No. 10 of 1949. Counsel for the appellant was S.P. Sinha, assisted by S.S. Prakasam, while counsel for the respondent was R. Ganapathy Iyer. The judgment concluded with the statement that the Court delivered its decision on 14 February 1952.

The Court noted that the appeal before it had been brought on special leave granted on 23 May 1950, and that the appeal challenged a Division Bench judgment of the Madras High Court dated 10 April 1950, in which the learned judges had held the appellant guilty of contempt of court and had imposed a term of simple imprisonment of three months. The appellant was identified as the publisher and managing editor of a Telugu-language weekly entitled “Praja Rajyam,” which was edited and printed at Nellore in the Madras State. The Court recorded that the particular issue of the weekly dated 10 February 1949 contained an article carrying the heading “Is the Sub-Magistrate, Kovvur, corrupt?” and that the substance of the article asserted that the stationary Sub-Magistrate of Kovvur, Surya Narayan Murthi, was reputed locally to be a taker of bribes and to habitually harass litigants in various ways. The article further alleged that the magistrate employed a broker through whom negotiations relating to these alleged corrupt practices were conducted, and it cited several specific cases in which the magistrate was rumored to have either accepted bribes or subjected parties to undue harassment because those parties refused the broker’s demands. The Court observed that the brief article concluded with a paragraph stating that many villages in Kovvur Taluk were divided into party factions, that wealthy persons exploited these factions to secure punishments for opponents by offering bribes or making recommendations, and that appointing magistrates who pursued parties in such a taluk amounted to a betrayal of the public, a failure of justice, and a question whether the Collector would investigate the matter and alleviate public fear. The Court further noted that the State Government, having become aware of the article, caused the Advocate-General of Madras to file an application before the High Court on 14 November 1949, invoking section 2 of the Contempt of Courts Act (Act XII of 1926), and praying that appropriate action be taken against the appellant as well as three other individuals – the editor, the sub-editor of the newspaper, and the proprietor of the press that printed the paper. Upon receiving notice, the appellant appeared before the High Court and filed an affidavit in which he accepted sole responsibility for the contested article, asserted that the article had been published out of an anxiety to uphold the highest traditions of the judiciary, and expressed a desire to foster popular confidence in courts, which he described as having the duty to dispense justice without fear, favour, or discrimination of caste, creed, or community. The affidavit further stated that, prior to publication, the appellant had received numerous complaints from various quarters accusing the magistrate of corruption and disreputable conduct, and that the sole purpose of publishing the article was to draw the attention of higher authorities to the state of public opinion on the matter and to invite an inquiry into the truth or falsity of the allegations, which the appellant emphasized were not presented as facts but were based solely on hearsay.

In that proceeding the appellant asserted that his intention was to bring the public’s attention to the matter and to invite an inquiry into the truth or falsity of the allegations, which he acknowledged were not presented as proven facts but were based solely on hearsay. After hearing arguments from both sides, the High Court concluded that the article in question did constitute contempt of court because it was calculated to lower the prestige and dignity of the courts and to bring the administration of justice into disrepute. The Court observed that the appellant had refused to substantiate the allegations he had made, had admitted that they were based on hearsay, and had declined to express any regret for publishing the article. Consequently, the Court sentenced the appellant to simple imprisonment for a period of three months. The other three respondents, through their counsel, offered an unqualified apology to the Court, and the learned Judges deemed that no further action against them was necessary.

The propriety of the High Court’s decision with respect to the appellant was challenged in the present appeal. Counsel appearing in support of the appeal raised two separate contentions. The first and principal contention was that the contempt alleged had been committed in respect of a court subordinate to the High Court and that the allegations contained in the article amounted to an offence under section 499 of the Indian Penal Code. Accordingly, counsel argued that the High Court’s jurisdiction to take cognizance of the matter was expressly barred by section 2(3) of the Contempt of Courts Act. The second contention related to the merits of the case. Counsel submitted that the appellant had acted in perfect good faith in publishing the article, which he described as nothing more than a demand for an inquiry into the conduct of a particular individual who was believed to have engaged in corrupt practices while performing judicial duties. On that basis, counsel maintained that no contempt of court was intended or committed by the appellant.

The first point required an interpretation of section 2(3) of the Contempt of Courts Act, which reads: “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.” According to counsel, this provision means that if the act alleged to constitute contempt of a subordinate court also constitutes any offence punishable under the Indian Penal Code, then the High Court is precluded from taking cognizance of that contempt. Counsel further argued that, in the present case, the allegations made in the article amounted to an offence of defamation as defined by section 499 of the Indian Penal Code, and therefore the High Court’s jurisdiction was barred.

In this case, the Court examined the argument that section 499 of the Indian Penal Code made the High Court’s jurisdiction barred and relied on the Nagpur High Court decision in Kisan Krishna Ji v. Nagpur Conference of Society of St. Vincent de Paul (1). Although that contention seemed plausible at first glance, the Court found it to be unsound. The Court held that the sub-section of section 2(3) of the Contempt of Courts Act excludes the High Court’s jurisdiction only where the acts alleged to constitute contempt of a subordinate court are punishable as contempt under specific provisions of the Indian Penal Code. The Court clarified that this exclusion does not apply where those acts merely amount to offences of a different description for which punishment is already provided in the Indian Penal Code. This distinction was evident 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”. The Court observed that, had the Legislature intended a broader exclusion, it could have expressly stated that the High Court’s jurisdiction would be ousted only when the contempt itself is punishable as such under the Indian Penal Code. It seemed to the Court that the reason for not using such language was that the expression “contempt of court” does not appear as a description of any offence in the Indian Penal Code, even though certain conduct that would be contempt in England is defined as offences under that Code. The Court pointed out that, although the powers of Indian High Courts established under their Letters Patent to act as superior courts of record in punishing contempt of their own authority have never been doubted, there was controversy before the Contempt of Courts Act, 1926 as to whether a High Court could, like the English Court of King’s Bench, punish contempt of subordinate courts through its inherent jurisdiction. That doubt was removed by Act XII of 1926, which expressly declared the right of the High Court to protect subordinate courts against contempt, but subject to the restriction that cases of contempt already provided for in the Indian Penal Code should not be taken cognizance of by the High Court. The Court identified this restriction as the principle underlying section 2(3) of the Contempt of Courts Act. While it was unnecessary to exhaustively determine the exact offences covered by this principle for the present case, the Court noted that section 480 of the Criminal Procedure Code shed useful light on the matter. Section 480 empowers any civil, criminal or revenue court to punish summarily a person who is found guilty of committing an offence under sections 176, 178, 179, 180 or section 228 of the Indian Penal Code in the in the

The Court observed that it could not accept the proposition, which the Patna High Court had expressed in Jnanendra Prasad v. Gopal(1), that section 228 of the Indian Penal Code is the sole provision dealing with contempt committed against a court of justice or a judicial officer. The Court explained that offences contemplated in sections 175, 178, 179 and 180 of the Indian Penal Code may also constitute contempt of court when the “public servant” referred to in those sections is, in a particular case, a judicial officer, as is made clear by section 480 of the Criminal Procedure Code. The purpose of a contempt proceeding, the Court noted, is “to deter men from offering any indignities to a court of justice,” and a defining feature of such proceedings is the court’s inherent power to act summarily against the contemnor. In the situations described in section 480, the statute expressly authorises the court to impose summary punishment on a person who has offended the dignity of the court in the manner specified. The Court further indicated that, under section 482 of the Criminal Procedure Code, it may refer any case of this description to a magistrate having jurisdiction to try it, should the Court consider that the offender warrants a punishment exceeding that which section 480 permits. Moreover, the Court is empowered by section 484 to discharge the offender upon the submission of an apology, even if the Court has already sentenced the offender under section 480 or has referred the matter for trial under section 482, as reflected in I.L.R 12 Pat 172.

The Court went on to explain that the mode of purging contempt by tendering an apology is another distinctive characteristic of contempt proceedings. Consequently, the Court recognised that certain offences are punishable as contempt under the Indian Penal Code and that subordinate courts are capable of adequately protecting their dignity through the provisions of criminal law. For this reason, the legislature deliberately excluded such offences from the jurisdiction of the High Court by means of section 2(3) of the Contempt of Courts Act. However, the Court cautioned that it would be erroneous to assert that the High Court’s jurisdiction is completely barred even in cases where the alleged contempt also falls within an offence defined by the Indian Penal Code. The Court affirmed that this position has been adopted, and in its view correctly so, by several High Courts, namely the Calcutta(1), Patna(2), Allahabad(3) and Lahore(4) High Courts. The sole authority cited by counsel for the petitioner, Mr Sinha, in support of his argument was the decision of the Nagpur High Court in Kisan Krishna Ji v. Nagpur Conference of Society of St. Vincent de Paul( ). The Court noted that this authority favours the petitioner’s contention because it assumes that the rationale underlying section 2(3) of the Contempt of Courts Act is that where a person can be punished by another tribunal, the High Court should refrain from entertaining a contempt proceeding. The Court indicated that it was prepared to consider this line of reasoning further.

It should be noticed that the learned Judge who decided the present matter had earlier taken the opposite view in the case of Subordinate Judge, First Class, Hoshangabad v. Jawaharlal(6). In that earlier decision he definitively held that the prohibition contained in section 2(3) of the Contempt of Courts Act applies only to offences punishable as contempt of court under the Indian Penal Code and does not extend to offences punishable in any other manner. That earlier judgment was neither mentioned nor contested in the subsequent case, and it is quite possible that the later judge was not drawn to this prior pronouncement, which would certainly have led to a more thorough discussion of the issue. The later judgment also failed to notice several authorities that might have been relevant, namely Narayan Chandra v. Panehu Pramanik (A.I.R. 1935 Cal. 684); Naresh Kumar v. Umaromar (A.I.R. 1951 Cal. 489); Kaulashia v. Emperor (12 Pat. 1); State v. Brahma Prakash (A.I.R. 1950 All. 556); Emperor v. Jagannath (A.I.R. 1938 All. 358); Bennett Coleman v. G.S. Monga (I.L.R. 1937 Lah. 34); A.I.R. 1943 Nag. 334; and A.I.R. 1940 Nag. 407. The absence of reference to these cases suggests that the learned Judge was not prompted to consider them, which might have altered the analysis. We further think that the decision of the Calcutta High Court in V.M. Bason v. A.H. Skone(1), which formed the basis of the learned Judge’s reasoning in the later case, does not truly support the view taken therein. In the Calcutta case a clerk of the attorney who appeared for the respondent decree-holder went to serve a notice under Order 21, Rule 37(1) of the Civil Procedure Code on the appellant judgment-debtor. The judgment-debtor refused to accept the notice and proceeded to insult and assault the attorney’s clerk. Contempt proceedings were then instituted against him, and Mr Justice C.C. Ghosh, sitting on the Original Side of the High Court of Calcutta, found the appellant guilty of contempt and imposed a fine of Rs 200. On appeal, the appellate bench affirmed that judgment and Chief Justice Sanderson, at the close of his judgment, made a general observation that it is not desirable to invoke the special inherent jurisdiction of the High Court for contempt proceedings when ordinary proceedings in a magistrate’s court are sufficient to meet the requirements of the case. That matter was not brought under section 2(3) of the Contempt of Courts Act, and no question arose or was decided as to whether the High Court’s jurisdiction under that section would be ousted when an act is punishable as an offence under the Indian Penal Code. Undoubtedly the High Court possessed jurisdiction in that case, and whether such special, summary jurisdiction should be employed in the circumstances of a particular case depends upon the discretion of the court. However, this consideration has no bearing on the specific point before us. Consequently, we hold that the correct view was the one taken by the learned Judge of the Nagpur High Court in the earlier case and not the view later adopted.

Counsel for the petitioner further argued that, even assuming the earlier view to be correct, the language of section 499 of the Indian Penal Code was sufficiently wide to cover a case of contempt of court. The argument was that a libel published against a judge in relation to his judicial functions constituted defamation within the meaning of section 499, and that therefore such libel could be said to be contempt of court; in other words, that libel on a judge was punishable as contempt under the Indian Penal Code. The Court did not accept this contention as sound. While a defamatory statement concerning the conduct of a judge in the performance of his judicial duties could certainly fall within section 499 and could permit the judge to pursue the ordinary remedy against the libeller for protection of his character and personal dignity, such libel did not automatically amount to contempt of court. The Privy Council, in Surendra Nath Banerjee v. The Chief Justice and Judges of the High Court, observed that “although contempt may include defamation, yet an offence of contempt is something more than mere defamation and is of a different character.” (1) I.L.R. 10 Cal. 109 at 131. The Court explained that only when the act of defaming a judge was calculated to obstruct or interfere with the due course of justice or the proper administration of law would it rise to contempt. Contempt, the Court noted, was essentially a wrong done to the public by weakening the authority and influence of courts, which exist for the public good. In the words of Willmot, C.J., “attacks upon the judges excite in the minds of the people a general dissatisfaction with all judicial determinations… and whenever man’s allegiance to the laws is so fundamentally shaken it is the most fatal and dangerous obstruction of justice and… calls out for a more rapid and immediate redress than any other obstruction whatsoever; not for the sake of the judges as private individuals but because they are the channels by which the King’s justice is conveyed to the people.” (2) Willmot’s Opinions page 256; Rex v. Davies 30 at p. 40-41. The Court therefore held that the Indian Penal Code made defamation punishable as defamation, not as contempt of court. If defamation of a subordinate court amounted to contempt, proceedings could be instituted under section 2 of the Contempt of Courts Act, separate from any remedy available to the aggrieved officer under section 499 of the Indian Penal Code. However, a libel attacking the integrity of a judge might, in the circumstances of a particular case, fail to constitute contempt at all, even though it could be the subject-matter of a libel proceeding.

In this case, the Court observed that the matter concerned a libel proceeding and referred to the observation of the Judicial Committee in the case known as The Matter of a Special Reference from the Bahama Islands (1) to support its view. Accordingly, the first contention raised by Mr. Sinha was found to fail. The Court also considered the second point raised by the learned counsel and concluded that it lacked any real substance. The article that formed the basis of the controversy was described by the Court as a scurrilous attack on the integrity and honesty of a judicial officer. The article set out specific instances in which the officer was alleged to have taken bribes or to have behaved improperly toward litigants who did not meet his dishonest demands. The Court noted that, if those allegations were true, exposing them would benefit the public by bringing improper conduct to light. Conversely, if the allegations were false, they would inevitably erode public confidence in the administration of justice and would bring the judiciary into disrepute. The appellant, although he admitted that he alone was responsible for publishing the article, was not in a position to substantiate any of the allegations by evidence. He expressly acknowledged that the statements in the article were based on hearsay. The Court observed that rumours may have reached the appellant from various sources, but that, before publishing the article, a reasonable person would have been obliged to attempt to verify the information received and to determine, as far as possible, whether the facts were true or merely fabricated lies. The appellant appeared to have made no such effort. Because the appellant did not act with reasonable care and caution, the Court held that he could not be said to have acted bona fide, as the precedent set in [1893] A.C. 138 indicates, even assuming that good faith might be a defence in a contempt proceeding. Moreover, the appellant expressed no remorse for his conduct either before the High Court or before this Court, and his behaviour showed no trace of contrition. In view of these considerations, the Court concluded that the appeal could not succeed and therefore dismissed it. The appeal was dismissed. The appellant was represented by an agent named S. Subrahmanyam, and the respondent was represented by an agent named P. A. Mehta.