N G DASTANE Vs. SHRIKANT S SHIVDE

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Leave granted.

(2.) We are much grieved, if not peeved, in noticing how two advocates succeeded in tormenting a witness by seeking numerous adjournments for cross-examining him in the Court of a Judicial Magistrate. On all those days the witness had to be present perforce and at considerable cost to him. It became a matter of deep concern to us when we noticed that the Judicial Magistrate had, on all such occasions, obliged the advocates by granting such adjournments on the mere asking to the incalculable inconvenience and sufferings of the witness. When he was convinced that those two advocates were adopting the tactics of subterfuge by putting forth untrue excuses every time for postponing cross-examination he demurred. But the Magistrate did not help him. Ultimately when pressed against the wall he moved the State Bar Council for taking disciplinary proceedings against the advocates concerned. But the State Bar Council simply shut its doors informing him that he did not have even a prima facie case against the delinquent advocates. He met the same fate when he moved the Bar Council of India with a revision-petition, as the revision-petition was axed down at the threshold itself. The exasperated witness, exhausted by all the drubbings, has now come before this Court with this appeal by special leave.

(3.) Appellant, the aforesaid aggrieved witness, describes himself to be an agriculturist scientist. He claims to have worked as an Advisor in the UNO until he retired therefrom. He filed a complaint before the Judicial Magistrate of First Class, Pune (Maharashtra) against some accused for the offence of theft of electricity. The accused in the said complaint case engaged Advocate Shri Shivde (the first respondent) and his colleague Shri Kulkarni (the second respondent) who were practising in the Courts at Pune. The two respondent-Advocates filed a joint Vakalatnama before the trial Court and the trial began in 1993. Appellant was examined-in-chief. Thus far there was no problem.