Publication calculated to produce an atmosphere of prejudice in the midst of legal proceedings constitutes contempt of court.

Horace Owen Compton Beasley, Kt., C.J.

1. The respondent here is the Editor and Publisher of the "Tamil Nadu" newspaper whose place of business is in Broadway, Madras; and he is here to-day to show cause why he should not be committed for contempt of Court or otherwise dealt with.

2. The facts of the case can be stated quite briefly and they are as follows: One Sathappa Chettiar at whose instance these proceedings have been put before the Court is an accused person. He stands charged in the Court of the Sub-divisional Magistrate of Coimbatore with the offence of criminal breach of trust- He is the Secretary and Banker of the Kaleswarar Mills, Ltd. and amongst other things he has two mills, vis., the Sree Krishna Ginning Factory and the Soma Vilas Ginning Factory under his management. A complaint was presented against him charging him with criminal breach of trust on the 1st September in the Court before mentioned. There were three heads of charge--so we gather from the opening of Mr. Nugent Grant--and they were that a certain sum which had been set apart for the payment of bonuses was received wrongly by Sathappa Chettiar, that out of a sum of money which lay in suspense account he set apart Rs. 75,000 in order to misappropriate that sum at some future dale and that he was guilty of receiving secret commissions from vendors of cotton. Immediately after this complaint had been presented in the Sub-divisional Magistrates Court of Coimbatore a search warrant was moved for and obtained and certain mills were searched by the Police. Two of them were the Sree Krishna Ginning Factory and the Soma Vilas Ginning Factory which, as before stated, were under his management. On the 4th September in the issue of that date of the respondents newspaper there appeared a report of the criminal charges against Sathappa Chettiar in the Sub-divisional Magistrates Court of Coimbatore. We understand that the report contained an accurate statement of the complaint which was set out in extenso. Had the matter ended there, no proceedings for contempt of Court could have been taken against the respondent, and Mr. Nugent Grant does not here rely upon what appeared with regard to that complaint in the respondents newspaper. He however complains of something which was done by the newspaper on the same date. In the poster or "Contents Bill" relating to this issue and in the head lines the matter was dealt with in Tamil in four lines, the official translation of which is as follows: "Sathappa Chettiar in trouble; Police search at Tiruppur; Thousands of rupees missing; Cotton Mills in danger." Mr. Rajagopalan who appears for the respondent argues that the correct rendering of that passage is as follows: "Sathappa Chettiar put to trouble; Police search at Tiruppur; Thousands of rupees missing; Cotton Mills plight" and argues that read in that way the conduct of the respondent does not amount to contempt of Court in so far as what he has done is not likely in any way to prejudice the fair trial of Sathappa Chettiar. With regard to the first line, in our view, there is not much difference between the official translation and the interpretation put upon it by the respondent. It called the attention of the public who were invited to read the newspaper to the fact that some trouble or worry had fallen upon Sathappa Chettiar. That by itself of course would not amount to anything but it is linked up with the next line which, in our opinion, clearly shows what those words were intended in the first line to convey to the public. As a result of this criminal complaint Sathappa Chettiar was certainly in trouble and of course those people who read the "Contents Bill" but had not then read the newspaper would find some indication of the sort of trouble that had been put upon him by the words "Police search at Tiruppur." Tiruppur was the place where these two factories which were under the management of Sathappa Chettiar were and there was a search and as a result of the