IS A VOTERS’ MEETING SEDITIOUS?

WE have said that the order contained in the Deputy Commissioner’s letter to Lala Raghunath Sahai appears to us to be of doubtful legality. Under the Seditious Meetings Act (section 4, sub section 1) which is an emergency and not a part of the ordinary law, “no public meeting for the furtherance or discussion of any subject likely to cause disturbance or public excitement shall be held in any proclaimed area, unless written notice of the intention to hold such meetings and of the time and place of such meetings has been given to the District Magistrate or the Commissioner of Police, as the case may be, at least three days previously, or unless permission to hold such meetings has been obtained in writing from the District Magistrate or the Commissioner of Police as the case may be.” It follows that in cases like the present where there is no likelihood of the subject for the furtherance or discussion of which a public meeting is proposed to be held causing disturbance or public excitement, it is not even obligatory upon the promoters of the meeting to give notice to the District Magistrate or obtain his permission in writing, and if Lala Raghunath Sahai did give notice to the Magistrate in this case it must have been only to avoid the possibility of misunderstanding. Again under sub-section 2 of the same section, “The District Magistrate or any Magistrate of the first class, authorised by the District Magistrate on his behalf, may by order in writing depute one or more police officers not being below the rank of head constables or other persons to attend any such meeting for the purpose of causing a report to be taken of the proceedings”. Obviously, there is no question here of prohibiting a public meeting, far less a whole class of public meetings, of one or more of which notice has been given.

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