Prevention of Insults to National Honour Act, 1957
Whereas it is expedient and necessary to prevent certain offences against the Indian National Flag, pictures, effigies and statues of the Father of the Nation, or the Constitution of India;
Be it enacted in the Eighth Year of the Republic of India as follows:
Section 1. Short title
This Act may be called the Prevention of Insults to National Honour Act, 1957.
Section 2. Burning, etc., of effigy, picture, portrait of Mahatma Gandhi an offence
Whoever wilfully burns or desecrates or insults, any effigy, picture or portrait of Mahatma Gandhi shall be punished with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to three years or with fine or with both.
Explanation. In this section, picture includes any print, drawing, painting or other representation, of the figure of Mahatma Gandhi.
Section 3. Destruction of the statue of Mahatma Gandhi an offence
Whoever wilfully causes damage to, or destruction, of, any statue or bust of Mahatma Gandhi or any such change in such statue or bust or in the situation thereof, as destroy or diminish its value or appearance or otherwise affects it injuriously, shall be punished with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to three years or with fine or with both.
Section 4. Burning, etc., of Indian National Flag an Offence
Whoever wilfully sums or desecrates or insult the Indian National Flag shall be punished with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to three years or with fine or with both.
Explanation. In this section, Indian National Flag includes any pictorial representation thereof.
Section 5. Burning etc., of the Constitution to be act of offence
Whoever wilfully burns or desecrates or insults any copy or a copy of a part of the Constitution of India, shall be punishable with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to three years or with fine or with both.
Section 6. Attempts to be offences
Whoever attempts to commit any offence punishable under this Act shall be deemed to have committed that offence.
Section 7. Savings
Nothing in this Act shall exempt any person from any proceeding which might, apart from this Act, be brought against him.
1. These words were substituted for the word Madras by the Tamil Nadu Adaptation of Laws Order, 1969, as amended by the Tamil Nadu Adaptation of Laws (Second Amendment) Order, 1969.
2. For Statement of Objects and Reasons, see Fort St. George Gazette, Part IV, V, Extraordinary, dated the 6th November, 1957, page 132. This Act was extended to the added territories by section 3 of, and the First Schedule to, the Tamil Nadu (Added Territories) Extension of Laws (No. 2) Act, 1961 (Tamil Nadu) Act 39 of repealing the corresponding law inforce in those territories.
3. Received the assent of the Governor on the 17th November, 1957, first published in the Fort St. George Gazette on the 18th November, 1957)