TMI Blog1988 (5) TMI 342X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... High Court and dismiss the writ petition filed by the 1st respondent before the High Court. - Civil Appeal No. 8440 of 1983 - - - Dated:- 2-5-1988 - VENKATARAMIAH E.S. AND OJHA N.D. JJ. Dr. Y.S. Chitale, Senior Advocate (P.H. Parekh, R.K. Dhillon, Ms. Sunita Sharma and Dr. D. Chandrachud, Advocates, with him), for the respondents. M.K. Ramamurthy, Senior Advocate (A.K. Sanghi, Advocate, with him), for the appellants. -------------------------------------------------- The judgment of the Court was delivered by E.S. VENKATARAMIAH, J.- The question which arises for consideration in this case is whether the law reports namely, All India Reporter, Criminal Law journal, Labour and Industrial Cases, Taxation Law Reports, Allahabad Law Journal and U.P. Law Tribune published by the 1st respondent, All India Reporter Limited, are newspapers as defined in the Working Journalists and Other Newspaper Employees (Conditions of Service) and Miscellaneous Provisions Act, 1955 (Act No. 45 of 1955) (hereinafter referred to as "the Act") and whether the employees of the 1st respondent engaged in the production or publication of the said law reports are entitled to th ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... sions relate to the retrenchment, payment of gratuity, hours of work, leave, fixation or revision of wages, etc. Chapter IIA of the Act deals with similar conditions of service of non- journalist newspaper employees. Section 9 of the Act authorises the Central Government to appoint a Wage Board consisting of two persons representing employers in relation to newspaper establishments; two persons representing working journalists; and three independent persons, one of whom shall be a person who is, or has been, a judge of a High Court or of the Supreme Court and who shall be appointed by that Government as the Chairman thereof for the purpose of making recommendations with regard to fixation or revision of wages of working journalists. Similarly, section 13C of the Act provides for the constitution of a Wage Board for the purpose of making recommendations regarding the fixation or revision of the rates of wages in respect of non-journalist newspaper employees. Section 13AA which was inserted by Act 6 of 1979 provides for the constitution of a Tribunal for fixing or revising rates of wages in respect of working journalists where the Central Government is of opinion that the Board con ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... ommendations of the Palekar Tribunal in respect of its employees since the 1st respondent was a newspaper establishment. Immediately after the service of the said notice the 1st respondent filed a writ petition on the file of the High Court of judicature at Bombay, Nagpur Bench in Writ Petition No. 2388 of 1982 questioning the validity of the notice served on it by the Deputy Labour Commissioner, Nagpur calling upon it to implement the orders of the Central Government on the basis of the award of the Palekar Tribunal. Initially the State of Maharashtra, the Commissioner of Labour and the Deputy Labour Commissioner, Nagpur had been impleaded as respondents. Thereafter during the pendency of the writ petition the Indian Federation of Working Journalists and the All India Reporter Karamchari Sangh were impleaded as respondents in the writ petition. It was urged before the High Court on behalf of 1st respondent, All India Reporter Limited, that the law reports published by it were not newspapers as defined in the Act and therefore the order made by the Central Government on the basis of the recommendations of Justice Palekar were not applicable to its establishment. The High Court ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... spaper' or 'periodical' which enables each to be infallibly distinguished from the other and from publications which are properly speaking neither. The term 'newspaper' is usually applied (except so far as concerns the important class of trade newspapers) to publications devoted mainly to recording current events, and 'periodicals' to magazines, reviews, and journals which, in so far as they are concerned with current events at all, are concerned to comment rather than to report; but newspapers merge into advertising sheets, periodicals into books and pamphlets, and both into one another;.........................." The expression "news" is not defined in the Act. Several definitions of the expression "news" collected from the different dictionaries and digests have been cited before us. It is enough if we refer to the meaning of the word "news" given in the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary for purposes of this case. It says that "news" means tidings, new information of recent events; new occurrences as a subject of report or talk. The law reports which are being published by the 1st respondent are reports of recent decisions of the Supreme Court of India and of the High Courts i ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... he country on any question decided in the decisions reported in the said reports. Hence it is difficult to agree with the submission made on behalf of the 1st respondent that the law reports do not carry any news and that the public is not interested in them. We are of the view that any decision published in the law reports of the 1st respondent contain information about the recent events which have taken place in the Supreme Court or in the High Courts which are public bodies and these are matters in which the public is interested. We find it also difficult to agree with the submission made on behalf of the 1st respondent that since the law reports are going to be preserved by the lawyers as reference books after getting them rebound subsequently they should be treated as books. It may be that the decisions contained in these law reports may cease to be items of news after some time but when they are received by the subscribers they do possess the character of works containing news. Strong reliance was placed on behalf of the 1st respondent on the decision of the High Court of Orissa in P.S.V. Iyer v. Commissioner of Sales Tax, Orissa [1960] 11 STC 608; AIR 1960 Orissa 221, in w ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... t in its decision in T.V. Ramnath v. Union of India 1975 Lab IC 488 in which the Madras Law Journal, a law report published from Madras, was held to be a newspaper and the establishment in which the said law report was being published was a newspaper establishment which attracted the provisions of that Act. We agree with the following observations made in the said decision by Ismail, J. (as he then was): "Similarly, the publications of the petitioner in the second writ petition can be said to contain 'public news' or 'comments on public news' since it contains reports of the judgments of the courts as well as comments on such judgments. Even though, the same may be primarily intended for that section of the public which is concerned with law and the administration of law, in the present days, nothing prevents any educated individual taking interest in such publications and the news themselves being of interest to such persons. Therefore I am clearly of the opinion that the expression 'public news' is of sufficiently wide amplitude to cover the publications of both the petitioners in question." It is seen that the editor of the law report containing the above decision has append ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X ..... l information economics; law and States administration education; philology; natural sciences; medicine; agriculture; technology; geography; ethnography; history; archives; archaeology literature; music; applied art; film; chess; photography; tourism; stamp collecting; physical culture and sport; humour and religion. In a catalogue of Russian papers for 1958 all the above categories of newspapers and periodicals have been included in addition to many others which deal exclusively with party affairs." It is significant that the expression "newspaper" as defined in the Act includes not merely "public news" but also "comments on public news". Every law report contains the editorial note at the commencement of the decisions printed therein and also comments on some of the recent decisions. Law reports also contain, newly enacted Acts, Rules and Regulations, book reviews and advertisements relating to law books, handwriting and finger print experts, etc., speeches made at conferences in which the legal fraternity is interested, etc. Though the publication of these items by itself may not occupy a substantial part of a law report to make it a newspaper, the publication of the recen ..... X X X X Extracts X X X X X X X X Extracts X X X X
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