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Nothing in Sub-clause (a) of Clause (1) shall affect the operation of any existing law in so far as it relates to, or prevent the State from making any law relating to, libel, slander, defamation, contempt of Court or any matter which offends against decency or morality or which undermines the security of, or tends to overthrow the State.
That the Press Act is an existing law must also be conceded. Now, in so far as the provisions of the Press Act relate to matters" specified in Clause (2) of Article 19, its operation cannot be affected by Clause (1)(a) of that Article . These, therefore, are the only exceptions and it will have to be examined whether Section 4 (1)(a), Press Act, falls under any of these exceptions mentioned in Clause (2) of Article 19 of the Constitution of India.

12a. The question may again arise whether the impugned provisions of the Press Act refer to matters which offend against decency or morality and are thus saved under the Constitution Act. I must observe in this connection that the learned Government-Advocate has not relied upon these phrases in Article 19 (2) in support of his contention. Prima facie it may appear that a publication which incites or encourages murder or cognizable offences involving violence must be opposed to all sense of decency or morality, as we understand these expressions in common parlance. Ordinarily one may be inclined to think that the Constitution Act does not limit the meaning of those expressions to some peculiar kind of offence. Here again the trend of the Supreme Court judgments, above referred to, stand in the way of our giving such a wide meaning to the expression "offends against decency or morality." The classification of offences in the Penal Code places these various kinds of offences under distinct categories; for instance, offences against the State are dealt with in chap. VI, offences against public tranquillity in chap. VIII, offences against public health, safety, convenience decency and morals in chap. XIV, whereas offences affecting the human body are in chap. XVI of the Code. These offences against decency' and morality are put in a class altogether distinct from offences of murder and cognizable offences involving violence. Therefore the offences must be deemed to be such offences as are mentioned in those classifications. This purports to be their Lordships' view. The framers of the Constitution must have been conscious of these provisions in the Penal Code when the Constitution came to be drafted, and the expressions used in the Act may be deemed to have been used in the same sense in which they were used in the Penal Code. From that point of view, it is impossible to hold that the provisions of Section 4 (1)(a) and (b) of the Act can be justified on the ground that they relate to matters which offend "against decency and morality" as these expressions have been given a narrower connotation in the Penal Code and may be deemed to have been used in the same sense in the Constitution Act as well.

13. I am compelled to observe that from the above discussions of the Supreme Court judgments, it follows logically that if a person were to go on inciting murder or other cognizable offences either through the press or by word of mouth, he would be free to do so with impunity inasmuch as he would claim the privilege of exercising his fundamental right of freedom of speech and expression. Any legislation which seeks or would seek to curb this right of the person concerned would not be saved under Article 19 (a) of the Constitution and would have to be declared void. This would be so, because such speech or expression on the part of the individual would fall neither under libel nor slander nor defamation nor contempt of Court nor any matter which offends against decency or morality or which undermines the security of or tends to overthrow the State. I cannot with equanimity contemplate such an anomalous situation but the conclusion appears to be unavoidable on the authority of the Supreme Court judgments with which we are bound. I, therefore, wish that my decision on the point would sooner than ever come to be tested by the Supreme Court itself and the position re-examined in the light of the anomalous situation pointed out above. It seems to me that the words used in the Constitution Act should be assigned a wide and liberal connotation even though they occur in a clause which provides an exception to the fundamental right vouchsafed under Article 19 (1)(a) of the Constitution Act: (vide 1930 A.C. 124 at p. 136.)