Romesh Thappar v State of Madras

Facts

The Government of Madras, acting under the Madras Maintenance of Public Order Act, banned the entry and circulation in the State of the English weekly 'Crossroads', published from Bombay, ostensibly to secure public safety and maintain public order. Romesh Thappar, the editor and publisher, challenged the ban as a violation of his freedom of speech and expression. He moved the Supreme Court directly under Article 32.

Issues

• Whether a law authorising restrictions on speech for 'public safety' and 'maintenance of public order' fell within the original Article 19(2), which permitted restrictions only against matters undermining the security of, or tending to overthrow, the State.
• Whether the freedom of speech and expression includes the freedom of circulation and the freedom of the press.

Arguments

The State argued that maintaining public order and public safety justified the ban as falling within the protection of Article 19(2). Thappar argued that 'public safety' and 'public order' were far wider than 'security of the State', so a law sweeping in lesser matters could not be saved by the narrow original clause (2).

Held

The Court struck down the impugned provision. It held that 'public safety' and 'public order' had a much wider connotation than 'security of the State', covering trivial breaches of peace not amounting to threats to State security. Since the law was not directed solely against the undermining of State security but could restrict speech for ordinary public-order purposes, it fell outside the original Article 19(2) and was void. The Court noted that the framers had deliberately excluded 'sedition' from clause (2), signalling a narrow sphere of permissible restriction.

Ratio decidendi

Unless a law restricting freedom of speech is directed solely against the undermining of the security of the State or its overthrow, it cannot be saved by the (original) reservation in Article 19(2), even if conceived in the interests of public order. Freedom of speech includes the freedom of circulation.

Significance

A foundational free-speech decision and, with Brij Bhushan v State of Delhi, the trigger for the Constitution (First Amendment) Act 1951, which inserted 'public order' and 'reasonable' into Article 19(2). It remains the source of the principle that speech-restrictions must be construed narrowly and that circulation is part of the right.

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