Reginald Perera V. The King

[IN THE PRIVY COUNCIL]

1951 Present: Lord Simonds, Lord Morton of Henryton,

Lord Radcliffe

REGINALD PERERA, Appellant, and THE KING, Respondent

Privy Council Appeal No. 53 of 1950

Contempt of Court-Definition of offence.

In a case of Contempt of Court there must be involved some '"act done or writing published calculated to bring a Court or a judge of the Court into contempt or to lower his authority " or something " calculated to obstruct or interfere with the due course of justice or the lawful process of the Courts ".

APPEAL by special leave from an order of the Supreme Court. Dingle Foot, with Ralph Millner and S. A. Tellis, for the appellant.

Frank Gahan, for the Crown, at adjourned hearing.

In the application for special leave to appeal-

Dingle Foot, with Kellock and M. L. S. Jayasekera, for the petitioner.

Cur. adv. vult.

February 28, 1951. [Delivered by LORD RADCLIFFE]

This is an appeal by special leave from an Order of the Supreme Court of Ceylon dated 25th July, 1950, whereby the appellant was ordered to pay a fine of Rs. 500 and, in default of payment, to undergo six weeks rigorous imprisonment. This sentence was imposed by the Court (Basnayake J.) as a punishment for a contempt of Court of which he held the appellant to have been guilty.

Owing to the nature of the proceedings there could be no appeal in Ceylon from this Order. The appellant was, however, granted special leave to appeal by His Majesty in Council; and Their Lordships have applied to his case the same general rules as it is their practice to apply on the occasions when appeals from criminal convictions are before the Board. The respondent was not represented at the hearing of the appeal or of the petition for special leave.

The appellant, Mr. Perera, is a member of the House of Representatives in Ceylon. On the 20th June, 1950, he paid a visit to the Remand Prison at Colombo and was escorted round the prison by one of the jailors. It appears that for many years past it was the practice that members of the State Council should make occasional visits to public institutions for the purpose of information or inspection, and after 1948, when the House of Representatives came into being, the practice was continued by members of that House. The Prison Amendment Ordinance (No. 53 of 1939) S. 35 makes provision for the Jailor of a prison to keep, inter alia, a Visitors' Book in which Judges of the Supreme Court, Senators or members of the House of. Representatives (as it now reads) and members of the Board of Prison Visitors may record observations or recommendations after a visit paid to the prison; and by the same Ordinance a direction is given that a copy of each new entry in the Visitors' Book is to be forwarded to the Inspector-General of Prisons.

In the course of this visit Mr. Perera received a complaint from some prisoners to the effect that they had not been present in Court when their appeals against conviction were being heard. He asked the jailor accompanying him whether it was the case that some prisoners were not taken to Court on such occasions and was told " We do not take all the prisoners, but only those who are undefended ".

It has become clear in these proceedings that that was not an accurate answer. The only foundation for it was the then prevailing practice of the High Court in dealing with unstamped petitions of appeal, These petitions were referred to a Judge in Chambers, Mr. Justice Basnayake, who either rejected the petition for want of compliance with the due procedure or acted in revision in any that he regarded as deserving cases. This practice, which has since been abandoned, appears to have originated in an order of the former Chief Justice, It involved no differentiation between prisoners who were and prisoners who were not defended: nor did it amount to the hearing of anything that could be called an appeal in the absence of the appe

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