Pollock, J—The short point before us is whether the article in question offends against Section 4(1), Press (Emergency Powers, Act, 1981, as tending, directly or indirectly, to bring into hatred or contempt the Government established by law in British India or to excite disaffection towards it. There is no doubt that anyone reading the article would understand it as accusing the Provincial Government of ''Three years of suffering, of brutal repression, of killing, of shooting, rapes and murders''. ''Three years of sufferings'' must, I think, be understood as meaning ''Three years of inflicting suffering'', for the sufferings referred to were presumably the sufferings alleged to have been suffered by the supporters of Congress at the hands of Government and not vice versa. With the truth of, or justification for such remarks we are not concerned; we have only to see whether such remarks tend to bring the Government into hatred or contempt or to excite disaffection towards it. That is what Beaumont C.J. held in 56 Bom. 472.

2. When he said at 486,

The effect of the Ordinance seems to us to bring within Section 4, Indian Press Act every charge of misconduct by Government, whether such charge is well founded or not,

he was dealing only with charges tending to bring the Government into hatred or contempt or to excite disaffection towards it, and the dictum, if I may say so with respect, was, I think, clearly correct. Even if Explanations 2 and 3 to Section 124-A, Penal Code, apply to cases under the Press (Emergency Powers) Act, they cannot apply when there has been an attempt to excite hatred or contempt: People who are so unfortunate as to be unable to advocate change in the form of Government, without attempting to bring into hatred or contempt or to excite disaffection towards the Government established by law, have not been specially favoured by the legislature, either by the terms of the section itself or by the explanations. They may take their grievance, if any, to the legislature, but the section while it stands, must be interpreted according to the plain and natural meaning of its words. (Per Rankin C.J. at p. 1226 in 57 Cal. 12172.)

3. I agree that even the more credulous readers of the Nagpur Times were unlikely to suppose that these murders and rapes were committed by the Governor or his Advisers, or even by the Chief Secretary. They would no doubt gather that the charge was directed against the magistrates, police and soldiers who suppressed the disorders of 1942. ''Government'', however, as defined in Section 17, Penal Code, denotes more than the Governor and his Advisers; it denotes the person or persons authorized by law to administer executive Government in any part of British India. ''It is possible to excite such feelings towards the Government by, an unfair condemnation of any of its services'', as Shah J., pointed out in Bal Gangadhar Tilak v. Emperor, 1916 AIR(Bom) 9, and It is quite possible, by the abuse of Government officials as officials, to make an endeavour to bring into hatred or contempt the Government established by law in British India, as Rankin C.J., remarked in Emperor v. Satya Ranjan Bakshi, 1930 AIR(Cal) 220.

4. The magistrates, police and troops who suppressed the disorders of 1942 were the agents of the Government, and a charge against them of wholesale murder and rape could hardly fail, I should have thought, to tend to arouse hatred against the Government that employed them. It might be possible to bring forward charges more likely to arouse hatred or contempt or to excite disaffection, and there is, of course, the famous case mentioned by Gibbon in which the more scandalous charges, but not those of murder and rape, were suppressed, but it would probably require some thought to compose charges more likely to produce that effect. As, however, my learned brothers take the view that such charges do not tend, even indirectly, to have such an effect, I do not propose to pursue the matter fu