JUDGMENT

BEG, C.J.I. :— The matter before us arises out of a publication in the Indian Express newspaper dated 13th December, 1977. Some people perhaps believe that attempts to hold trials of everything and everybody by publications in newspapers must include those directed against the highest Court of Justice in this country and its pronouncements. If this is done in a reasonable manner, which pre-supposes accuracy of information about a matter on which any criticism is offered, and arguments are directed fairly against any reasoning adopted, I would, speaking for myself, be the last person to consider it objectionable even if some criticism offered is erroneous. In Bennett Coleman & Co. v. Union of India, 1973-2 SCR 757 at pp. 828-29. I had said (at p. 828 of SCR)

"John Stuart Mill, in his essay on "Liberty", pointed out the needs for allowing even erroneous opinions to be expressed on the ground that the correct ones become more firmly established by what may be called the dialectical process of a struggle with wrong ones which exposes errors. Milton, in his "Areopagitica" (1644) said :

"Though all the winds of doctrine were let loose to play upon the earth, so Truth be in the fi