ORDER AGAINST MR. DAS.

WE have already briefly noticed the order issued by the Magistrate of Mymensingh prohibiting Mr. C.R. Das from entering that town. The order, as will have been seen from Mr. Das’s letter, is under Section 144, Criminal Procedure Code, and not under the Defence of India Act. It is difficult to understand why the magistracy all over the country are having simultaneous recourse for a political purpose to a section which obviously was never intended to deal with political workers. Had the Defence of India Act been abandoned, there would have been some semblance of an excuse for the course they have been following. As a matter of fact, it is still being used in every case in which it suits the purpose of the authorities to use it. In our own Province, orders have within the last few days been served upon two of our most prominent public men under this Act. It has been even more freely used in the Frontier Province, in at least one case against a leader of all-India reputation and authority. Even the Bengal Government has not so far cancelled its order prohibiting Mr. Habib from entering or residing in that Province. If this is all that the acceptance of the Hon. Mr. Shastri’s resolution has secured for us, the author of that resolution will, we believe, be the first person to regret that he ever took the action he did. We have from the first expressed the view that the application of Section 144. Cr. P. Code to political workers is illegal. That view has now been confirmed by a high legal authority, one of the highest in the country, one whose competence to express an opinion on the subject even the Government cannot deny. It was only the other day that the Government engaged Mr. Das to conduct some of its most important cases and either offered or actually paid him fabulous fees. Having done so, it cannot lie now to say that Mr. Das’s opinion on this matter is of no value.

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