Page:The Modern Review (July-December 1925).pdf/391

368 once applied to the University Registrar for a regular supply of Minutes and Reports, etc., in lieu of payment or as a matter of courtesy but failed to obtain what we wanted. “Ajax” writes in reply:—

We will take the writer’s statements one by one.

He says, the printed Minutes and Reports of the University are available in the market. Our impression was and still is that the Minutes are not offered for sale to the public. In order to test whether our impression was correct, we turned to the sixty-four page catalogue of Calcutta University publications forming a part of “The Calcutta Review” for August, 1925. There among the “Periodicals, Annuals and Serials”, offered for sale, we find Convocation addresses, University Calendars, University Regulations, University Question Papers, Calcutta University Proceeding of the Councils of Postgraduate Teachings, but not the Minutes or any other Reports.

If the Minutes were “available in the market”, the Registrar could have referred us to “the market” in his reply; but to the best of our recollection (we are writing this at a great distance from our office and library in Calcutta), he did not do so. As far as we can recollect he wrote in reply that the Minutes were meant for the Fellows of the University;—though on our printing this reply in this, a gentleman who was not a Fellow sent us a loose part of the Minutes from a mufassil station promising a regular supply of such parts in future. This fact also we mentioned in this. At that time neither the Registrar nor “Ajax” had anything to say.

The Registrar has certainly a copy of his reply in his office. If he publishes it in “The Calcutta Review,” we shall be able to judge whether our memory has played us false in this matter.

he next statement made by “Ajax” is that we “wanted that the Minutes of the Syndicate should be supplied to” us “before the Senate had considered the decisions of the Syndicate.” As we have no copy of our application to the Registrar before us as we write. we cannot quote the exact words of our application; but we are morally sure that we did not want the Minutes to be supplied to us “before the Senate had considered the decisions of the Syndicate.” If we did make any such request, let the Registrar publish our application and we shall readily admit that we did so.

If we did make such a request, it was open to the Registrar to point out that such an application was in his opinion unreasonable; but, to the best of our recollection, his reply did not contain any such remark. All doubts can be set at rest by the Registrar publishing the full texts of our application and his reply thereto.

“Ajax” has asked the impartial public to judge whether an application for supplies of printed Syndicate Minutes “before the Senate had considered the decisions of the Syndicate” is “reasonable.” Let us consider the matter in an impersonal manner, not caring whether we made any such request or not.

Let us take some similar or analogous cases, premising that they should not be expected to be on all fours with the matter under discussion.

Are not the decisions of subordinate courts supplied to anybody and published before the publication of the judgment of the High Court on appeal? Do not newspapers sometimes even criticise the judgments of subordinate courts before an appeal has been preferred? Are not even High Court judgments published before a Privy Council appeal has been decided?

The Syndicate is a sort of Committee of the Senate. Are the reports, decisions or recommendations of select committees of legislative bodies, or of other committees, never supplied to the Press and published before the final decisions thereupon of the larger bodies have been reached?

In India as a whole, bills do not become law before they have been passed by the Council of State and have received the assent of the Governor-General after passage through the Legislative Assembly. But that does not prevent the supply to the Press of the debates and other proceedings of the Legislative Assembly in parts as they are printed before the final stage of any legislation has been reached.

In Britain, the House of Lords have their say on the bills passed by the Commoners. But do not the British newspapers and Hansard publish the House of Commons