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Press and Registration of Books (Punjab Amendment) Act, 1942

Punjab Act 14 of 1942

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Received the assent of his Excellency the Governor General on the 31st December, 1942, and was first published in the Punjab Government Gazette, Part I, dated the 1st January, 1943.

An Act to amend the Press and Registration of Books Act, 1867, in its application to the Punjab.

It is hereby enacted as follows :-

  1. Short title.- This Act may be called the Press and Registration of Books (Punjab Amendment) Act, 1942.
Object & Reasons6

 

Statement of Objects and Reasons. - For many years Government have from the time to time been puzzled to know whether or not to demand a declaration under Sections 4 and 5 of the Press and Registration of Books Act, XXV of 1867, from a person who claims not to be starting a new printing press or newspaper but to be reviving an old one for which he has already made and subscribed a declaration. The keeper of a printing press and the keeper and the publisher of a newspaper are required to appear before a District Magistrate to make and subscribe, in duplicate, a declaration in the form prescribed in those sections. But there is no statutory injunction in the Act compelling a person, who ceases to function as keeper or printer publisher, or whose press or newspaper goes out of action, to make a ceasing declaration, though he can do so, if he so wishes, under the rule framed under Section 20, or in the case of a newspaper only, under Section 8. Sometimes an employed keeper or a printer-publisher embarrasses his employer by refusing to file a ceasing declaration at the latter's bidding; later the proprietor-keeper or the proprietor-printer-publisher, after a long period of inaction begins to publish again under the same name claiming that although a considerable time has elapsed, the new printing press or the newspaper is the same as the old one. Thus the absence of a time limit of period for which a declaration under Sections 4 or 5 of the Act, relating to an idle press or an unpublished newspaper, can be valid has been an embrassessment to an employer keeper or an employer printer-publisher and the Government. The object of the present Bill is to mitigate these embarrassments by doing away with the doubts arising out of the absence of the time limit for the validity of declaration".

(Punjab Gazette, Part I, dated the 27th March, 1942).
  1. Amendment of Section 4 of Act XXV of 1867.- Section 4 of the Press and Registration of Books Act, 1867 (hereinafter referred to as the said Act), shall be re-numbered as sub-section (1) of Section 4 and to the section so re-numbered, the following sub-sections shall be deemed to be added, namely :-

[(2)] As often as a press for the printing of books and papers having ceased to function is restarted, a new declaration shall be necessary unless the cessation is due to non-compliance with an order under sub-section (3) of Section 3 or sub-section (1) of Section 5 of the [Indian Press (Emergency Powers) Act, 1931,] or any other law for the time being in force.

[(4)] For the purposes of this Act a printing press shall be deemed to be have ceased to function if no books or papers are printed therein for a period of six consecutive months.

  1. Repealed by Punjab Act 15 of 1957, Section 3.
  2. Repealed by Punjab Act 15 of 1957, Section 3.