Right to benefit of doubt arises.

The petitioner is the editor and publisher of “Dravida Nadu”, a Tamil Weekly which is printed at and issued from Kancheepuram. He seeks to set aside the order of the Provincial Government, dated 25th May, 1949, directing him to deposit with the District Magistrate, Chingleput, on or before the 25th June, 1949, security to the amount of Rs. 3,000. The order was passed in exercise of the powers conferred by section 7(3) of the Indian Press (Emergency Powers) Act, 1931, on the ground that the issues of the petitioner’s journal dated 4th April, 1948 and 18th April, 1948, contained matter of the nature described in section 4(1)(A) of the said Act. A translation in English of the offending passages from the two issues mentioned above was appended to the order. This application has been made under section 23 of the Act and what this Court has to decide is whether the newspaper in respect of which the order was made did or did not contain any words of the nature described in section 4(1)(h)of the Act.

The words which fall within the scope of section 4(1)(A)are words which

“tend directly or indirectly to promote feelings of enmity or hatred between different classes of His Majesty’s subjects.”

Explanation 4 which has to be read along with the main provision is as follows:

“Words pointing out, without malicious intention and with an honest view to their removal matters which are producing or have a tendency to produce feelings of enmity or hatred between different classes of His Majesty’s subjects shall not be deemed to be words of the nature described in clause (h) of this sub-section.”

It is well established that on an application like this the Court should consider the writing as a whole in a fair, free and liberal spirit, without attaching undue weight to isolated passages, sentences or phrases. The Court should gather the general effect which the whole composition is likely to produce upon persons who may be normally expected to read the newspaper in question. Flamboyant and exaggerated language and violence of expression ought to be certainly taken into account, but they can never be conclusive in determining whether the writing as a whole falls within the ambit of the enactment.

In the appendix to the order of the Government two extracts are given from two articles published on the two dates mentioned in the order. The first is from an article under the caption “Gandhi Ramaswami and Periyar Ramaswami”. It is a fairly long article but only certain passages from it have been extracted in the appendix. We have been taken through the entire article and the learned Advocate-General appearing for the Government has not also confined himself to the extracts appended to the Government Order. The occasion for the article is indisputably clear. It is the election of Sri Omandur Ramaswami Reddiar as the leader of the Congress Legislative Party in April, 1948. The rival candidate was Sri T. Prakasam. The article starts with a praise of the good qualities of Ramaswami Reddiar and then poses the question: Why was there any opposition to such a man? The writer draws pointed attention to the fact that the opposition to him did not come from another political party, but it arose within his own party. The circumstance would not be strange by itself if the ground of opposition was that he was not a desirable person or that his policy was not acceptable. This part of the article may be summed up in the following words of the writer:

“There has been opposition without any reason-under circumstances in which no reason has been given out openly-to a leader admitted by the people of the land to be the good man in the party governing the land. His character has not been suspected; his policy has not been attacked, no alternative policy has been formulated. Still there is rivalry-is it rivalry..... why?”

The rest of the article is devoted to an analysis of events and circumstances with a view to demonstrate that the opposition was due to the intrigue and