RAM BHAROSEY AGARWAL Vs. HAR SWARUP MAHESHWARI

JUDGEMENT

(1.) As this appeal under Sec. 38 of the Advocates Act. 1961, must succeed on three short points, it will be enough to state those facts which bear on them.

(2.) Appellant Ram Bharosey Agarwal was practising as an advocate in Bulandshahr. Uttar Pradesh. He was engaged by respondent Har Swarup Maheshwari, on behalf of his daughter Smt. Munni Devi, to pursue her application against her husband Jai Narain under Section 488, Cr. P. C. in the Court of Sub-divisional Magistrate. Bulandshahr. The case was decided in favour of Smt. Munni Devi on September 5, 1963, and a maintenance allowance was granted to her. When the order was put into execution, Har Swarup Maheshwari engaged another lawyer to prosecute the execution application. In those proceedings the property of Jai Narain was attached. His father claimed that the attached property belonged to him and his application to that effect was alleged to have been filed by the appellant. The first charge against the appellant was that he was guilty of professional misconduct in accepting a brief on behalf of Jai Narain's father. Jai Narain filed an application for reconsideration of the order of maintenance, and examined three witnesses. Smt. Munni Devi's father Har Swarup Maheshwari instituted a case for defamation against those three witnesses and Jai Narain. Appellant Ram Bharosey Agarwal was engaged by the accused in those proceedings. The second allegation against the appellant therefore was that he was guilty of misconduct in appearing on behalf of the accused in the defamation case. The third allegation was that the appellant wrote a letter dated August 14, 1967, to Jagdish Narain Agarwal, an advocate of the Allahabad High Court, to have an appeal which had gone upto the Allahabad High Court dismissed even though there were no such instructions from his client and the action was detrimental to the interest of the client.

(3.) The Bar Council of Uttar Pradesh was moved for disciplinary action against appellant Ram Bharosey Agarwal for the three matters mentioned above. The Disciplinary Committee framed four issues, three of which related to the alleged misconduct in regard to the three matters mentioned above, while the fourth issue was meant to decide whether the appellant was guilty of professional misconduct. Instead of dealing with the three substantial issues one by one, the Disciplinary Committee examined them all together even though they raised different questions of fact. What was worse, the Disciplinary Committee did not give reasons in support of its finding on any of the issues. All the same, it reached the conclusion that the appellant was guilty of professional misconduct. suspended him from practice for a period of two years, and awarded Rs. 100/- as costs to the complainant.