JUDGMENT

CHANDRACHUD, CJI.— This is a petition asking that the respondents be committed for contempt for certain statements allegedly made by Respondent 1, who is the Chief Minister of Jammu and Kashmir. Respondent 2 is the Editor of a newspaper called Daily Kashmir Times in which those statements were published, while Respondent 3 is its correspondent.

2. In the issue of the Daily Kashmir Times dated Nov. 13. 1982, a news item appeared under the caption "CM asks engineers to forcibly occupy club building". According to the report, the Chief Minister, while addressing the annual general meeting of the Institute of Engineers, said that the engineers should occupy a certain building forcibly as it would not be possible for them to evict the Amar Singh Club through the normal legal process and that he would provide the necessary police assistance for that purpose. The report says that the Chief Minister advised the Institute of Engineers to move quickly in the matter before the management of the Club could obtain a stay order from the Court.

3. Another news item appeared in the same newspaper on Nov. 23, 1982 under the caption "Chief Minister says he will never accept courts, stay orders". According to the report, the Chief Minister while addressing a rally of Judicial Employees? Welfare Association, denounced and ridiculed the judiciary by saying that "justice is being bought in the judicial courts". Taking exception to the frequent stay orders issued by the Courts against the Government, the Chief Minister is alleged to have said : "I will never honour these stay orders even if I am hanged", that justice could be bought with money and that this task could be performed conveniently by any leading lawyer. The news item concludes by saying that later, the Chief Minister expressed his regret to the Chief Justice and other Judges of the High Court who were present at the meeting, explaining that the strong words used by him were the voice of his conscience but. otherwise, he had greatest regard for the judiciary, and that he only wanted quick justice for the people.

4. On March 18, 1983 a notice was issued by this Court to the respondents asking them to show cause why action under the Contempt of Courts Act, 1971 should not be taken against them. Since one of the respondents is a Chief Minister, we assumed that there would be no difficulty in serving the notice upon him and he would file his reply promptly in view of the seriousness of the allegations made against him. But, until September 26, 1983 no counter-affidavit was filed in the matter. When the Contempt Petition was called out on that date, Mr. Altaf Ahmed, accepted the notice on behalf of the Chief Minister. On that date, the Court directed the Chief Minister to file his counter-affidavit within four weeks. On October 21, 1983 the Registry submitted a report to the Court that Mr. Altaf Ahmed had not yet filed his appearance for the Chief Minister. On Nov. 21, 1983 an affidavit dated Nov. 9, 1983 of the Chief Minister was taken on record. Since the Chief Minister denied by that affidavit that he had made the kind of statements attributed to him, we issued a specific direction that respondent 2, the Editor of Daily Kashmir Times, should appear in person before the Court on November 28, 1983. That was with a view to obtaining his explanation as to how the newspaper came to publish the various statements which the Chief Minister denied he had ever made.

5. Respondent 2 appeared before us on November 20, 1983 and stuck to the version published in the newspaper. In the light of that, we reverted to the counter-affidavit filed by the Chief Minister when we found that it did not traverse the allegations of the petitioners satisfactorily. We therefore directed him to file a further affidavit dealing with the allegations against him clearly and specifically. In pursuance of that direction, Respondent 1 filed an affidavit dated December 14, 1983.

6. By his affidavit dated Jan. 9, 1984, Res