R.S. Ruikar v. Emperor AIR 1935 Nag. 149

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J.C. GRILLE, J. – This is an application in revision by R.S. Ruikar who has been convicted of the abetment of the offence of molestation defined in S. 7, Criminal Law Administration Act (23 of 1932). He was sentenced to six months’ rigorous imprisonment, and the sentence was upheld on appeal. The facts found are as follows: The Nagpur Textile Union of which the applicant is the President had determined on a strike of textile workers in Nagpur, the ground being that certain conditions in the terms of settlement of a strike in the previous year 1933 had been evaded by the Empress Mills in Nagpur. The strike was ordered, but did not at first meet with the response which the union desired and consequently a system of picketing was inaugurated. On 3rd, 4th and 6th May 1934 the applicant made speeches supporting the strike and in the course of his speeches advocated and encouraged the picketing of the mills and called for volunteers to carry on the picketing. On the morning of 5th May as a result of a complaint made by some of the strike committee that two women picketers had been harassed by the police and driven away, the applicant brought his wife to one of the mill gates and posted her there with instructions to beat, with her slippers, any one who interfered with her. Charges were framed under four heads, three relating to the speeches delivered on 3rd, 4th and 6th May 1934 and the fourth relating to the incident of the abetment of picketing by his wife on 5th May. Proceedings were taken against the applicant on 7th May under S. 107, Criminal P.C., and it is admitted that after that there were no further activities on his part. He was not however arrested for the offences of which he has been charged and of which he has been convicted until the 16th May. The proceedings under S. 107, Criminal P.C., are in abeyance.

The principal contention on behalf of the applicant is that on the facts found against him in trial and in appeal no offence has been committed as S. 7, Criminal Law Amendment Act (23 of 1932) can have no application to purely industrial disputes.

In order to support the view that S. 7, Criminal Law Amendment Act, has no reference to picketing in the course of trade disputes, I am asked to refer to the statement of objects and reasons accompanying the Criminal Law Amendment Act on its introduction, and the decision in Shantanand Gir v. Basudevanand Gir [AIR 1930 All 225] has been cited as authority for the proposition that such reference is permissible, and old cases from the C.P. Law Reports have been cited to show that Judges have made references to Statement of Objects and Reasons in the past for the purpose of interpreting the law. The only other case cited by the applicant is Administrator General of Bengal v. Premlal Mullick [AIR 1922 Cal 788] and it is contended that their Lordships of the Privy Council, when holding that proceedings of the legislature in passing a statute are excluded from consideration on the judicial construction of Indian statutes, thereby implied that a reference to the Statement of Objects and Reasons is permissible. I am unable to read any such implication in the judgment of their Lordships. The latest C.P. case cited was Balaji v. Govinda [(1888) CPLR 111] and in that, as in the previous cases, there was doubt as to the exact meaning or intention of a particular section. In Shantanand Gir v. Basudevanand Gir which the applicant cites, the

Judges of the High Court of Allahabad were equally divided on the question whether it was permissible to refer to the Statement of Objects and Reasons appended to an Act as introduced and published and the three learned Judges who held that such a reference was permissible qualified their observations by the limitation that such a reference could be made when there was an ambiguity. As the wording of the section under consideration is entirely plain and unambiguous, it seems to me unprofitable and unnecessary to enter into a discussion of the question whether such a reference is permissible at all. The section itself makes no limitation in respect of the parties disputing or the nature of the disputes giving rise to a situation where picketing is employed, and from the wording of the section itself I am unable to see that its application is anything but universal.

It is next contended that a perusal of the Act as a whole without any reference to the Statement of Objects and Reasons would indicate that S. 7, Criminal Law Amendment Act is to be utilised only on occasions of combating undertakings which are subversive to the Government. Now it is true that the bulk of the sections in the Criminal Law Amendment Act (23 of 1932) do refer to activities subversive to Government and that the Act is a consolidation of some ordinance which had been issued from time to time and which the legislature considered necessary to embody as part of the law, but that in itself does not show that S. 7 cannot be of universal application. There are other sections which are equally of universal application. I cite S. 10 of the Act which gives the Local Government power to declare offences committed under certain sections non-bailable and cognizable despite the provisions of the Criminal Procedure Code. The Local Government may publish the requisite notification required by this section at any time when it considers that such proclamation is necessary in the interests of law and order, but once such a notification has been issued the section would become operative in law whether the offences falling under these sections were committed with a subversive object or not. The same criterion would apply to S. 7 of the Act, the effectiveness of which depends on the publication of the notification by the Government that the section shall come into force. The requisite notification was published in August 1933.

It is urged that at the time the Criminal Law Amendment Act was passed by the Central Legislature, assurances were given that S. 7 would not be employed in the case of industrial disputes. In interpreting the section this Court is precluded from considering any statements made in the Legislative Assembly or elsewhere on behalf of Government. It is no duty of the Courts of law to examine, criticise or interpret anything that may be said on behalf of Government in debate or elsewhere, and it is beyond the competence of this Court to examine the correctness of the applicant’s assertions. The duty of the Court is to interpret the law as enacted. Had it been the intention of the legislature to exclude the application of S. 7 from cases arising out of industrial disputes, it would have said so in explicit terms, more particularly in view of the nature of the majority of the other sections of the Act which have their origin in other ordinances. It is next argued that the ordinance out of which S. 7 arose was enacted with the particular purpose of combating the Civil Disobedience Movement. It is no doubt true that this was the occasion, but neither the ordinance nor the present Act lays down any limitation as to the circumstances in which molestation becomes an offence. At the time of the Civil Disobedience Movement of 1930 certain persons discovered a gap in the Indian Penal Code whereby they were enabled to commit acts of intimidation which were not

punishable by law. Proceedings taken to remedy this deficiency were not directed personally against such persons who were influenced by motives hostile to Government, but remedied the defect in law which left open the way for any person who so chose to bring unwarranted pressure on another person whatever his motive might be. The absence of any provision preventing molestation was recognised as a definite lacuna in the Criminal law and an enactment was made to remedy it. That the defect was discovered by the ingenuity of persons taking part in the Civil Disobedience Movement does not limit the universal applicability of the remedy, and I am unable to read, as the applicant desires me to read the opening word of the section “whoever” as “whoever” may be disaffected towards the Government.

The next contention is that there is a definite conflict between S. 7, Criminal Law Amendment Act and the Trade Unions Act of 1926. It is contended that the valuable right given to Trade Unions to declare a strike and their immunity from liability for criminal conspiracy or to civil suits in connection with the furtherance of a strike is taken away if S. 7, Criminal Law Amendment Act, is held to be applicable to trade disputes. I am unable to see any conflict. Trade Unions have the right to declare strike and to do certain acts in furtherance of trade disputes. They are not liable civilly for such acts or criminally for conspiracy in the furtherance of such acts as Trade Unions Act permits, but there is nothing in that Act which apart from immunity from criminal conspiracy allows immunity from any criminal offences. Indeed any agreement to commit an offence would, under S. 17, Trade Unions Act, make them liable for criminal conspiracy. S. 7, Criminal Law Amendment Act, is part of the Criminal law of the land and an offence committed as defined in that section is an offence to which the concluding sentence of S.17, Trade Unions Act, applies as much as it would do to an agreement to commit murder. The applicant has cited several passages from Maxwell on the Interpretation of Statutes which are all eminently acceptable propositions of law, but have no application to the case in hand. S. 7, Criminal Law Amendment Act defines a criminal offence of universal application without restriction and it must be interpreted according to its plain and obvious meaning, and as it defines a criminal offence it is not in conflict with the provisions of the Trade Unions Act, which remains unimpaired by S. 7, Criminal Law Amendment Act. In abetting the commission of this offence, an offence which was undoubtedly committed, the applicant has been correctly convicted.