JOSEPH Vs. RT REV DR JAMES

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS is a petition presented on behalf of the plaintiff in O. S. No. 156 of 1124 on the file of the Additional District munsiff's Court of Alleppey for taking action for contempt of court against the respondents who are two in number. The first respondent is described as the bishop of the Diocese within whose jurisdiction the petitioner resides. The second respondent is the Vicar of the St. George's Church of Pachakara, Koyilmukku pakuthy, Ambalapuzha Taluk. The petitioner describes himself as a parishner of this Church. He had filed a suit for a declaration that an Edavaka Yogam stated to have been held on the 26th June 1946 was not validly held and that the resolutions passed at that Yogam are null and void and not binding upon the church aforesaid or the parish in which the petitioner resides. He prayed for a permanent injunction to restrain the defendants from acting in pursuance of such resolutions. The second respondent is the 4th defendant to that action. The first respondent is not a party thereto. Pending the suit, the petitioner says that he applied for a temporary injunction to restrain the defendants from enforcing the purport of the resolutions. Notice was ordered to the respondents who filed their objections in court on 4. 5. 1124. On 5. 4. 1124 the plaintiff says he received a communication from the second respondent which purports to be a true copy of an order made by the first respondent. The document is filed with the petition. On receiving this communication, the petitioner sent a registered letter to the first respondent asking for information as to whether he had issued an order as set forth in the communication and also pointing out that if he had done so, the object of that order would be to defeat the administration of justice. To this no reply was sent by the first respondent. The petitioner alleges that the communication which he received contains a threat to excommunicate the petitioner and to claim damages from him in case he does not withdraw his suit forthwith. The petitioner submits that this letter and the subsequent excommunication of the petitioner are calculated to interfere and obstruct the course of justice. The object of this step taken by the respondents, according to the petitioner, was to cow down the petitioner into submission and compel him under threat of excommunication to abandon the suit which he had filed and which he was entitled to prosecute. After the petitioner was excommunicated, the defendants to the action seem to have filed an objection to the petitioner continuing to prosecute the suit, because he had no locus standi to do so after he was excommunicated from the church. According to the petitioner these acts of the respondents amount to contempt and he charges both the respondents with contempt of court.

(2.) THE first respondent is reported to be dead. He seems to have died soon after the petition was filed and before the date fixed for hearing. THErefore, so far as he is concerned no question arises for determination is this petition. Mr. T. K. Narayana Pillai, the learned counsel for the petitioner, however, wants to press the case against the second respondent who is the vicar of the Parish where the petitioner resides. Reliance was placed by the learned counsel on the case reported in Ch. Rajender singh v. Umaprasad (A. I. R. 1935 Allahabad 117 ). THEre, an application for contempt was made against a litigant and his counsel. When a suit was pending to which the petitioner in that case was a party, a lawyer's notice was sent by the advocate in which he was informed that unless within a week of the receipt of the notice an unqualified apology was tendered and certain averments contained in the pleadings were withdrawn by the petitioner and unless he paid a sum of rs. 10000 as damages, civil and criminal proceedings would be instituted against him by the party alleged to be in contempt. THE question for consideration was whether the sending of the notice amounted to a contempt of the subordinate judge's court, Dehra Dun, where the suit was pending. THEre the learned judges held that it being the right of every defendant to take every legitimate plea and submit his defence to the court for its consideration, a person who tries to deter a defendant from pressing his pleas would be liable to be proceeded against for contempt. It is pointed out in that case that it is the duty of the court to protect defendants from being cowed down into submission and under pressure of threat and menace being made to abandon pleas which they can legitimately raise in a pending action. THE following sentences in the judgment are relied on: "the present case is one where an attempt was made to put pressure on the defendant to withdraw a plea which had been taken in the written statement, duly filed in court, which was the subject of consideration by the Subordinate Judge of Dehra Dun. We think there can be no doubt that such an action amounted to a direct interference with the administration of justice in preventing the defendant from pressing his defence and putting forward the plea which might, if established, prove fatal to the suit and in that way an indirect attempt was made to exclude the plea taken on behalf of the minor from the consideration of the court. "

(3.) 4. 1945 passed by the Bishop. It then recites that instead of showing repentence, he had filed the civil suit without any adequate reason against the second respondent and others in their official capacity thereby causing unnecessary loss and expense to the church. The first respondent, therefore, directed the second respondent to inform the petitioner that in case he does not withdraw the suit forthwith the first respondent would excommunicate him. If he did not withdraw the suit, the first respondent gave authority to the second respondent to incur all necessary expense for defending the action out of church funds and also stated that after the suit was over, the amount of expenditure incurred by the church in defending the action would be recovered from such person as was found to be responsible for having brought about such unnecessary expenditure. What the second respondent did was to take a copy of this letter and forward it to the petitioner. He did not add any words of his own with regard to the contents of that letter. 5. The case of the second respondent differs from the case of the advocate in the Allahabad case relied upon by the petitioner's learned counsel. This is a case in which there is absolutely no evidence to show that the second respondent was responsible for the contents of the letter or that he suggested the idea to the first respondent of sending such a communication to the petitioner. The fact that the second respondent happened to be the 4th defendant in the suit filed by the petitioner, cannot by itself be sufficient to presume that he was instrumental in having this letter sent. On the other hand, the contents of the letter indicate that it was conceived by the first respondent and that he was acting in the exercise of his legitimate right of safeguarding the interests of the church. We are not prepared to assume, as the petitioner's learned counsel wants us to assume, that the second respondent was responsible for the despatch of this letter. He was legally bound to obey the commands of his Bishop and all that he did was to comply with the direction given to him by the Bishop in as innocuous a manner as possible. Therefore, in our judgment, the second respondent cannot be taken to task for obeying an order sent to him by the first respondent.