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Any order direction or injunction of any Court, tribunal or authority in any proceeding already passed or which may be passed will by operation of this order be and remain suspended till further orders of this Court. In substance the order was that the issue be proceeded with "without let or hindrance". notwithstanding any proceedings instituted or that may be instituted in or before any Court or tribunal or other authority. This Court vacated all orders of injuction in respect of the said issue. It was asserted on behalf of the petitioner that this Court must have been prima facie satisfied that there was no legal infirmity which should stand in the way of the public PG NO 220 issue of the said debentures going through and further, in any event, must have been satisfied that there should not be any let or hindrance to the said public issue. The petitioner had drawn our attention to an article published on 25th August, 1988, under the heading "Infractions of Law has Unique Features RPL Debentures". It is not necessary for the present purpose to set out the said article. It was claimed in the said article that the Controller of Capital Issues had not acted properly and legally in granting the sanction to the issue for various reasons stated therein. It was further stated that the issue was not a prudent or a reliable venture. It was contended that by this article the respondents have commented on a matter which is sub-judice and was intended to undermine the effect of the interim order passed by this Court and the ultimate decision of the Court and they threatened to publish such articles unless restrained by this Court. It was contended that trial by newspapers on issues which are sub-judice is one of the grossest modes of interference with the due administration of justice and any threat of that interference should be prevented by both punitive action of contempt and preventive order of injunction of wrong anticipated to be committed by the delinquent. The publication threatened or expected expected to be published would cause very grave interference with the due administration of justice, and should, therefore, be prohibited.

In Attorney General v. Times Newspapers Ltd., (supra), between 1959-61 a company made and marketed under licence a drug containing thalidomide about 450 children were born with gross deformities to mothers who had taken that drug during pregnancy. In 1968, 62 actions against the company begun within 3 years of the births of the children were compromised by lump sum payments conditional on the allegations of negligence against the company being withdrawn. Thereafter leave to issue writs out of time was granted ex parle in 261 cases, but apart from a statement of claim in one case and a defence delivered in 1969 no further steps had been taken in those actions. A further 123 claims had been notified in correspondence. In 1971 negotiations began on the company's proposal to set up a 3 1/4 million charitable trust fund for those children outside the 1968 settlement conditional on all the parents accepting the proposal. Five parents refused. An application to replace those parents by the Official? Solicitor as next friend was refused by the Court of Appeal in April 1972. Negotiations for the proposed settlement were resumed. On September 24, 1972, a national Sunday newspaper published the first of a series of articles to draw attention to the plight of the thalidomide children. The company complained to the Attorney General that the article was a contempt of court because litigation against them by the parents of some of the children was still pending. The editor of the newspaper justified the article and at the same time sent to the Attorney General and to the company for comment an article in draft, for which he claimed complete factual accuracy, on the testing, manufacture and marketing of the drug. On the Attorney-General's motion, the Divisional Court of the Queen's Bench Division granted an injunction restraining publication on the ground that it would be a contempt of court. After the grant of the injunction on November 17, 1972, and while the newspaper's appeal was pending, the thalidomide tragedy was on November 29 debated in Parliament and speeches were made and reported which expressed opinions and stated facts similar to those in the banned article. Thereafter, there was a national campaign in the press and among the general public directed to bringing pressure on PG NO 231 the company to make a better offer for the children and their parents; and the company in fact made a substantially increased offer.

The Court of Appeal having discharged the injunction. the Attorney-General appealed to the House of Lords. It was held that the contempt of court to publish material which prejudged the issue of pending litigation or was likely to cause public prejudgement of that issue, and accordingly the publication of this article, which in effect charged the company with negligence, would constitute a contempt, since negligence was one of the issues in the litigation. The House of Lords granted injunction prohibiting the Times Newspaper from publishing the proposed publication. Reference was made to Oswald's Contempt of Court, 3rd Edn. ( 1910), where it was emphasised that the contempt of court involves 3 objects, namely, (i) to enable the parties to come to the courts without interference; (ii) to enable the courts to try cases without interference; and (iii) to ensure that the authority and administration of the law is maintained. There was no room for the balancing suggested by the respondents between the public interest in free discussion of matters of public concern and the public interest that judicial proceedings should not be interfered with . (Emphasised by Mr. Baig).