A division bench of Calcutta high court comprising chief justice A.K. Mathurand justice Girish Chandra Gupta today passed an order restraining the Oxford UniversityPress and its printer Manzar Khan and publisher Paul Press from selling a bookentitled Taking the State to Court;PIL by Hans Dembowski.
It also directed the petitioners to serve the notice upon the German authorthrough the German consulate, Kolkata.
The bench passed the order following a petition filed by state governmentpleader Subodh Ukil and advocate Debasis Kundu on February 15 alleging contemptof court against the author.
The petitioner alleged the book contains unwarranted and scandalous remarkson the competence and abilities of the judges of the high court and hadundermined the confidence of the public at large in the judiciary and hadbrought the judiciary to ridicule.
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Appearing on behalf of the Oxford University Press senior advocate Dipankar Guptastated that they had already withdrawn the book from the market.
Gupta submitted that his clients Manzar Khan and Paul Press had alreadytendered unconditional apology by filing an affidavit and that they may beexempted from the case.
The matter will come up for further hearing after 6 weeks.
