The House may perhaps recall that one Miss Bina Das shot at the Governor of Bengal, Mr. Stanley Jackson. She was arrested; the Governor was not killed. In the course of her trial, she made a statement in the court. This statement could not be available anywhere in the country. It so happened that one member of the Central legislature, at that time, in the course of his speech on the repressive policy of the Government in Bengal read out the entire statement given by Miss Bina Das in the course of her trial. That was a revealing document. She gave the entire history of the genesis of the terroristic outrages in Bengal and particularly the circumstances that compelled her to take to that drastic step against the Governor of Bengal. Not a single line of that was allowed to come out in the Press on the ground of security by the British Government. The question arose when the speech of the honourable Member of the Central legislature which contained that statement came to be published. The Government said it could be not be published. Sir B. L. Mitter the Law Member of the Government of India stoutly resisted its publication – a speech in the course of which he simply narrated the full text of the statement made by the accused Miss Bina Das in connection with her trail. That was in 1934. In 1935 or 1936- I do not exactly recollect, probably it was in 1935-we had been discussing the Criminal Law Amendment Bill in Simla. In the course of the general debate on the Criminal Law Amendment Bill, a speech was delivered by my late lamented Friend, Pandit Krishna Kanta Malaviya in which he gave a resume of the so-called terroristic outrages in the country and tried to explain how to policy of the British Government had been mainly responsible for the morbid psychology which compelled young men and women to take to the cult of the bomb and the revolver. It was a magnificent speech. We were surprised that the next morning, non of the papers did publish a single sentence of the two-hour speech, a written speech which was delivered by my Friend Pandit Krishna Kanta Malaviya. The Government of the day, the Home Minister, I think it was Sir Henry Craik, took jolly good care to see that not a single line of that speech came out in the Press. He could only print and publish it on pain of penalty. Thereafter, my Friend Mr. Malaviya published the entire text of that speech-the speech as it is-in his own paper, Abhyudaya. At once the Government of the day came down upon him, he was not prosecuted but a security was demanded from his paper. Now when this was done, we on the floor of the House of the Legislative Assembly in 1936 raised a debate and brought a censure motion. We took the stand that the privilege of the house was infringed in-as-much as when a member made a speech on the floor of the House which was printed and published in the Government publication or assembly Debates and when he made a verbatim transcript of the whole thing in his own paper, immunity should also be extended to it. There were elaborate arguments by honourable Member on either side. The then Law Member Sir Nripendra Nath Sircar came out with a statement-at that time surprising-that the House had no privileges though all time the House had been acting in the belief that it had certain rights and privileges. He said ‘This House has no privilege’. Be that as it many owing to our pressure the matter was settled then. This raises a very important point. I am surprised today at this changes of attitude of those my friends and colleagues, who were with us in those days and who condemned the stand of the Government of those days and stoutly maintained that a published report of the proceedings, if honestly made by any private agency should also be entitled to protection. In those days they were the people who were all of the same opinion. Today we conveniently forget that and we do not allow that same privilege to be extended to non-Government publication. I realise that it is quit possible that in the course of the debate a member might be making references which if made outside will not give him immunity in a Court of law; but frivolous charges are not allowed to be made by the Speaker in the House. As a matter of fact the Standing Orders also provide that you cannot digress and make all manner of scurrilous or objectionable speeches. If you make libellous or slanderous speeches, the Speaker pulls you up. A member cannot say things unless he is sure about them and can substantiate them. Whenever reference like that are made, by any particular member, the Speaker or President of the Chamber at once calls him to order. If in spite of that, the Member is firm and makes a speech with certain objectionable remarks what happens? When the government publishes that in the shape of records of Debates, there is no harm. If the Government prints them in large numbers, one can buy and distribute them as he likes with impunity. Put if at a later stage for instance an honourable Member wants to publish his own speeches or some of his relations wants to publish them and they make a verbatim transcript of these very speeches delivered by him which are published in the Official Debates, if they publish them in their own books, then no immunity is attached to that. It is preposterous, whatever the excuse may be for that. I ask the House to carefully consider this.
