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(ii) Whether truth can be pleaded as defence in contempt proceedings?

11. We shall take up the second question first. Some of the common law countries provide that truth could be a defence if the comment was also for the public benefit. Long back the Privy Council in Ambard4 held that reasoned or legitimate criticism of judges or courts is not contempt of court. The Privy Council held:

"The path of criticism is a public way; the wrong headed are permitted to err therein: provided that members of the public abstain from imputing improper motives to those taking part in the administration of justice, and are genuinely exercising a right of criticism, and not acting in malice or attempting to impair the administration of justice, they are immune. Justice is not a cloistered virtue: she must be allowed to suffer the scrutiny and respectful, even though outspoken, comments of ordinary men."

12. In Wills5 the High Court of Australia suggested that truth could be a defence if the comment was also for the public benefit. It said, "...The revelation of truth - at all events when its revelation is for the public benefit

- and the making of a fair criticism based on fact do not amount to a contempt of court though the truth revealed or the criticism made is such as to deprive the court or judge of public confidence...".

13. The legal position with regard to truth as a defence in contempt proceedings is now statutorily settled by Section 13 of the 1971 Act (as substituted by Act 6 of 2006). The Statement of Objects and Reasons for the amendment of Section 13 by Act 6 of 2006 read as follows:

Ambard v. Attorney-General for Trinidad and Tobago; [(1936) AC 322].

 Nationwide News Pty. Ltd. v. Wills; [(1992) 177 CLR 1].

"The existing provisions of the Contempt of Courts Act, 1971 have been interpreted in various judicial decisions to the effect that truth cannot be pleaded as a defence to a charge of contempt of court.

2. The National Commission to Review the Working of the Constitution (NCRWC) has also in its report, inter alia, recommended that in matters of contempt, it shall be open to the Court to permit a defence of justification by truth.

(b) the court may permit, in any proceeding for contempt of court, justification by truth as a valid defence if it is satisfied that it is in public interest and the request for invoking the said defence is bona fide."

15. The Court may now permit truth as a defence if two things are satisfied, viz., (i) it is in public interest and (ii) the request for invoking said defence is bona fide.