PRAVIN C SHAH Vs. K A MOHAMMAD ALI

JUDGEMENT

(1.) We thought that the question involved in this appeal would generate much interest to the legal profession and hence we issued notices to the Bar Council of India as well as the State Bar Council concerned. But the Bar Council of India did not respond to the notice. We therefore requested Mr. Dushyant A. Dave, Senior Advocate , to help us as amicue curias. The learned senior counsel did a commendable job to help us by projecting a wide screen focussing on the full profiles of the subject with his usual felicity. We are beholden to him.

(2.) When an advocate was punished for contempt of Court can he appear thereafter as a counsel in the Courts, unless he purges himself of such contempt If he cannot, then what is the way he can purge himself of such contempt. That question has now come to be determined by the Supreme Court.

(3.) This matter concerns an advocate practising mostly in the Courts situated within Ernakulam District of Kerala State. He was hauled up for contempt of Court on two successive occasions. We wish to skip the facts in both the said cases which resulted in his being hauled up for such contempt as those facts have not direct bearing on the question sought to be decided now. (The detailed facts leading to the said proceedings have been narrated in the two decisions of the High Court of Kerala reported in C.N. Presannan vs. K.A. Mohammed Ali, 1991 Cri LJ 2194 and 1991 Cri LJ 2205). Nonetheless it is necessary to state that the High Court of Kerala found the respondent-advocate guilty of criminal contempt in both cases and convicted him under Section 12 of the Contempt of Courts Act. 1971, and sentenced him in one case to a fine of Rs. 10,000/- ( to be credited, if realised, to the funds of Kerala Legal Aid Board). In the second case he was sentenced to pay a fine of Rs. 2,000/-. Though he challenged the conviction and sentence imposed on him by the High Court, he did not succeed in the Supreme Court except getting the fine of Rs. 2,000/- in one case deleted. The apology tendered by him in this Court was not accepted, for which a two Judge Bench mode the following observation :