Judgment :- 1. The petition is by Sri T. A Rajendran, the Editor, 'Navab', Fort Cochin; and the purpose of the petition is to bring to the notice of this Court Ext. P1 report in the Mathrubhumi dated October 17,1983, of a speech alleged to have been made by the 1st respondent, Sri P. V. Ayyappan, the Advocate General, at a reception accorded to him and Sri T. N. Jayachandran, the Vice Chancellor, the Calicut University, at Trichur on October 15,1983, which, according to the petitioner, constituted "criminal contempt" as defined in S.2(c) of the Contempt of Courts Act, 1971, (the Act). Respondents 2,3 and 4 respectively are the Publisher, the Editor and the Trichur Correspondent of the Mathrubhumi. 2. The 1st respondent's statement: "The Courts have become super Government", and his declaration: "I will oppose this tendency", are the offensive parts of the speech as reported in Ext. P1 according to the petitioner. 3. The 1st respondent who was present in Court replied to the query by us that the Press report did not represent the correct and true version of his speech. Assuming, without deciding, that the 1st respondent had spoken as reported in Ext. P1, we do not find sufficient ground for initiating action under the Act which essentially is in the nature of a criminal proceeding. S.2(c) of the Act lays down: "(c) 'criminal contempt' means the publication whether by words, spoken or written, or by signs, or by visible representations, or otherwise of any matter or the doing of any other act whatsoever which (i) scandalises or tends to scandalise, or lowers or tends to lower the authority of, any court; or (ii) prejudices, or interferes or tends to interfere with, the due course of any judicial proceeding; or (iii) interferes or tends to interfere with, or obstructs or tends to obstruct, the administration of justice in any other manner:" 4. What precisely was meant by the 1st respondent, or understood by the petitioner, or was intended to be conveyed to the listeners of the speech or to the readers of the report by the expression "super Government", the petitioner was not in a position to enlighten us. He read out to us the dictionary meaning of the word "super" which included something in excess of what was required. He read out to us the dictionary meaning of the word "super" which included something in excess of what was required. "Super Government", therefore, might be a Government over the Government, or an authority other than the Government exercising powers of the Government. We are in the region of conjecture as to what precisely was the meaning desired to be conveyed by the person who made the speech. The last sentence extracted in the first paragraph of Ext. P1 gives some clue as to the context in which the expression was used. It says that he pointed out that the judiciary, the legislature and the executive had certain limits. Presumably the 1st respondent only wanted to convey that he thought that there was a tendency on the part of the Courts to usurp the functions of the Government and that it had to be resisted. We do not think that we should feel provoked at this rather unpalatable statement or that we should submit ourselves to hyper-sensitiveness. We, however, appreciate the emphasis laid by the counsel for the petitioner that a responsible constitutional functionary in the position of the Advocate General who is to assist and advise the Court on matters concerning contempt proceedings under the Act, and whose utterances are likely to be understood as the views of the Government, is expected to exercise great restraint in expressing an opinion which is likely to be published by the media and read by large number of people. For the foregoing reasons we dismiss the petition.