JUDGMENT

Piggott, J. - Murli Dhar and Ganga Saran have been convicted of an offence u/s 228 of the Indian Penal Code in consequence of certain expressions used by them, while occupying the position of accused persons, in the course of a petition presented to a Court. The immediate object of this petition was to obtain an adjournment of the case on the ground that the persons accused were intending to apply for transfer of the proceedings to another Court. The petition was not happily worded, and as a matter of fact there was no obligation on the petitioners to explain to the Court at all the grounds on which they intended to apply for the transfer. The question, therefore, is whether it follows as a fair presumption from the wording of the petition that the intention of the persons presenting the same was to offer insult to the presiding officer of the Court. The learned Sessions Judge in affirming the conviction admits that his attention was called to the case of Queen-Empress v. Abdullah Khan A.W.N. (1898) 145 and has taken it upon himself to hold that that case is not of general application and that, if the same point were again raised before this Court, it would be differently d