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3. Because prima facie, the aforesaid passage relating to the activities of the State judiciary both at the subordinate level as well as in the High Court was considered to be objectionable and prima facie contemptuous in character, these contempt proceedings were initiated by the petitioners against the Editor, Executive President, Printer and Publisher and the correspondent of this newspaper. On 24th May 1990, a Division Bench of this court sitting at Srinagar issued notices to the respondents to show cause as to why they should not be dealt with under Section 94 of the Constitution of J&K State for committing contempt of the High Court and the court of Sub-Judge, Shopian as also members of subordinate judiciary. Since for a long time, notices could not be served upon the respondents and because the court was convinced that there was no other alternative, it vide its order dated 4-10-1992 directed the issuance of bailable warrants against the respondents to be executed through Police Commissioner, Delhi. While the execution of these warrants was in progress, in the meanwhile, vide order dated 10th December 1993 passed in Criminal Transfer Application No. 62/91, this contempt application which had originally been filed in the Srinagar wing of this court was transferred to its Jammu wing. It was after the transfer of the petition from Srinagar to Jammu that on 28th December 1993 for the first time the respondents caused their appearance in the contempt application before the court when they appeared through Shri S.K. Puri and Shri R.K. Gupta their counsel. On that day, i.e., 28th December, 1993, respondents also submitted their reply to the contempt application. We, however, found that the reply submitted by the respondents, even though styled as an unconditional apology, was in fact a conditional one because the respondents had attempted to offer justification for the contemptuous and scandalous writing against this court and its sitting Judges. We also observed that Mr. Puri, learned counsel appearing for respondents has made a feeble attempt to offer explanation in support of the act of the respondents in publishing the news item in question but we refused to consider any such explanation offered at that time keeping in view the contents of the publication and the reply submitted. We accordingly directed the production of respondents Nos. 1 and 4 in the court. We also gave liberty to the respondents, if they so chose, to submit apologies in any other form, as was prayed for by Mr. Puri. On 7th Feb. 1994 respondents Nos. 1 and 4 caused their personal appearance along with their learned counsel. This time unconditional apologies were tendered by the respondents and on their behalf. It shall be advantageous to reproduce these apologies which read thus :

9. If we consider the ratio of the aforesaid two Judgments and apply it to the facts of the present case, we find that respondent No. 4 did not at all make any attempt at any stage of the proceedings prior to 7th Feb. 1994 to offer and tender unconditional and unqualified apology for the offending publication. As noticed, the publication was carried in the newspaper of 7th May 1990 and the contempt proceedings were initiated on 17th May 1990. Thereafter despite the respondents having clear knowledge of the pendency of these proceedings and despite their having appeared in the court initially to seek transfer of the contempt application from Srinagar wing to Jammu wing and subsequently while participating in the proceedings in Jammu, had ample opportunities to express repentence for the offending publication. This they could do by one of the two established modes. They could either themselves publish the apology in the newspaper and inform the court of their having done so. Alternatively, they could have directly come to the court and placed themselves at its mercy by offering the apology. They did neither. On the other hand in the reply filed as late on 27th Dec. 1993, even though while terming it as an apology as noticed earlier, in paras 4 and 6, explanation, even though totally unconvincing and irrelevant, was sought to be offered as an excuse for writing the offending publication.