Newspaper - Definition - Law Dictionary Home Dictionary Definition newspaper

Definition :

Newspaper, means any printed periodical work containing public news or comments on public news and includes such other class of printed periodical work as may, from time to time, be notified in this behalf by the Central Government in the Official Gazette. [Working Journalists and Other Newspaper Employees (Conditions of Service) and Miscellaneous Provisions Act, 1955 (45 of 1955), s. 2 (b)]

The essential pre-requisite of a periodical work containing public news or comments on public news, P.S.V. Iyer v. Commissioner of Sales Tax, AIR 1960 Ori 221 (223). (Orissa Sales Tax Act, 1947)

Any paper to be classified as a newspaper, would contain a report of recent events, Commissioner of Sales Taxi v. Express Printing Press, AIR 1983 Bom 190 (192). [Bombay Sales Act, (51 of 1959), s. 2(3)]

[s. 81, Indian Evidence Act]

The expression 'newspaper' as defined in the Working Journalists and Other Newspaper Employees (Conditions of Service) and Miscellaneous Provisions Act includes not merely 'public news' but also 'comments on public news'. Every law report contains the editorial note at the commencement of the decisions printed therein and also comments on some of the recent decisions, All India Reporter Karmachari Sangh v. All India Reporter Ltd., AIR 1988 SC 1325 (1331): 1988 Supp SC 472.

Periodical publications containing intelligence of passing events. They have from time to time been the subject of enactments for their general regulation. The principal of these were 60 Geo. 3 & 1 Geo. 4, c. 9, and 6 & 7 Wm. 4, c. 76. But these and other Acts were repealed by the (English) Newspapers Printers and Reading Rooms Repeal Act, 1869, with the exception of certain ss. re-enacted by that Act, amongst which the most important are 39 Geo. 3, c. 79, s. 29, and 2 & 3Vict. c. 12, s. 2, by which printers of newspapers must print their names and places of abode thereon, etc.

The (English) Judicial Proceedings (Regulation of Reports) Act 1926 (16 & 17 Geo. 5, c. 61), makes it an offence to print or publish in relation to judicial proceedings any indecent matter, or indecent medical, surgical, or physiological details calculated to injure public morals. The same Act makes it unlawful to print or publish in relation to matrimonial causes any particulars other than the names, addresses, and occupations of parties and witnesses; a concise statement of the charges, defences countercharges; submissions on points of law; the decision of the Court thereon; and the summing-up of the judge, finding of the jury, and judgment of the Court.

No prosecution under this Act may be commenced without the sanction of the Attorney-general.

Libel.--Under the (English) Libel Act, 1843 (6 & 7 Vict. c. 96), s. 2, the defendant in any action for a libel contained in a public newspaper may plead an apology and payment into Court. the (English) Newspaper Libel and Registration Act, 1881 (44 & 45 Vict. c. 60), as amended by the (English) Law of Libel Amendment Act, 1888 (51 & 52 Vict. c. 64), requires the consent of a judge at chambers to the prosecution of a newspaper for libel, allows the defence of justification to be gone into by justices, allows justices to summarily convict, and gives 'privilege' (see LIBEL) to newspaper reports of proceedings in a Court or at public meetings.

The (English) Act of 1881 also establishes a register of newspaper proprietors, open to public search, defining 'newspaper' in the Act as meaning, any paper containing public news, intelligence, or occurrences, or any remarks or observations therein [an obvious misprint for ''thereon'] printed for sale, and published in England or Ireland periodically, or in parts or numbers at intervals not exceeding 26 days between the publication of any two such papers, parts, or numbers.