CHANDRAKANT KALYANDAS KAKODAR versus THE STATE OF MAHARASHTRA AND ORS.

Citation: [1970] 2 S.C.R. 80 · Decided: 25-08-1969 · Supreme Court of India · Bench: S.M. SIKRI · Disposal: Appeal(s) allowed

Cited by 1 judgment(s) · cites 1 · see the full citation network in Lexace

Judgment (excerpt)

80 
CHANDRAKANT KALYANDAS KAKODAR 
!'.· 
THE STATE OF MAHARASHTRA AND ORS. 
August 25, 1969 
(S. M. SIKRI, G. K. MITTER AND P. JAGANMOHAN REDDY, JJ.] 
Obscenity-Tests for determining-Penal Code Sec. 292. 
The appellant, the author of a short story and the printer and publisher 
of the story were comicted under section 292 J.P.C. on a charge of ob· 
scenity. 
Setting aside the conviction this Court, 
A 
B 
HELD : It is the duty of the Court to consider the article, story or 
book by taking an overall view of the 
entire work and to determine 
C 
whether the obscene passages are so likely to deprave and corrupt those 
whose minds are open to such influences and in whose hands the book 
is likely to fall; and in doing so the influence of the book on the social 
morality of our contemporary society cannot be overlooked. Even so, as 
the question of obscenity may have to be judged in the light of the claim 
that the work has a pre-dominant literary merit, it may be necessary if it 
is at all required, to reJy to a certain extent on the evidence and views of 
leading litterateurs on that aspect. [82 D; 83 E-G] 
D 
To insist that the standard would always be for the writer to see that 
the adolescent ought not to be brought into contact with sex or that if 
they read any references to sex in what is written, whether that is the 
dominant theme or not, they would be affected, would be to require the 
authors to write books only for the adolescent and not for the adults. 
What has to be seen is that whether a class, not an isolated case, into 
whose hands the book, article or story falls suffer in their moral outlook or 
E 
become depraved by reading it or might have impure or lecherous thoughts 
aroused in their minds. The charge of obscenity must, therefore, be judged 
from this aspect. [88 D, G-HJ 
RanFt D. Udeshi v. State of Maharashtra [1965] I S.C.R., 65 followed. 
Applying the above tests the story read as a whole did not amount to 
its being parnography nor did it pander to the prurient interest. [87 A-Bl 
F 
CRIMINAL APPELLATE JURISDICTION : Crlminal Appeal No. 
170 of 1967. 
Appeal by special leave from the judgment and order dated 
October 25, 1966 of the Bombay High Court in Criminal Appeal 
No. 805 of 1965. 
S. S. Kavalekat, K. Rajendra Chaudhuri and K. R. Chaudhuri, 
for the appellant. 
H. R. Khanna, B. D. Sharma and S. P. Nayar, for respOlll.dent 
No. 1. 
G 
The Judgment of the Court was delivered by 
H 
P. 
Jaganmohan Reddy, J. 
This appeal is by special 
leava directed against the judgment of the Bombay High Court. 
A 
B 
c 
D 
E 
F 
G 
H 
C, K. KAKODAR V. MAHARASHTRA (Reddy, J.) 
81 
The appellant is the auihor of a short story entitled Shama 
published in the 1962 Diwali Issue of Rambha, a ~o~thly Marathi 
Magazine, which story is said to be obscene. Crimmal p~oceed­
ings .were, therefore, initiated before the first class Magistrate, 
Poona by the complainant Bhide under s. 292 l.P .C. against the 
Printer and Publisher accused 1, the writer of the story accused 
2 and the selling agent accused 3. The complainant stated that 
he had read the aforesaid Diwali issue of Rambha and found 
many articles and pictures in it to be obscene which are calculated 
to corrupt and deprave the minds of the readers in general and 
the young readers in particular. The Complainant further re-
ferred to several other articles in the same issue such as the 
story of Savitri and certain cartoons but we are not now concerned 
with these because both the Magistrate as well the High Court 
did not think that they offended the provisions of s. 292 l.P.C. 
the magistrate after an exhaustive consideration did not find the 
accused guilty of the offence with which they were charged and, 
therefore, acquitted them. The complainant and the State filed 
appeals against this judgment of acquittal. Before the High Court 
it was conceded that there was no evidence that accused 
No. 3 had sold any copies of the issues of Rambha and accordingly 
the order of acquittal in his favour was confirmed. 
In so far as 
the other two accused are concerned it reversed the order of 
acquittal and convicted the printer and publisher accused 1 and 
the writer accused 2 :inder s. 292 I.P.C. but taking into considera-
tion the degree of obscenity in the passages complained of a fine 
of Rs. 25 /- only was imposed on each of the accused and in default 
they were directed to suffer simple imprisonment for a week. 
It 
was also directed that copies of the maga

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