K. GOVINDARAJA IYENGAR Vs. PETHA PONNAN

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE facts out of which this appeal arises are as follows: The appellant was the defendant in an original suit filed before the learned District Munsif of Sankaridurg at Salem for recovery of a sum of Rs. 600 as damages for false and malicious prosecution. The plaint averments, with which alone we need be concerned for the disposal of the appeal, were as follows. The defendant (appellant) was the President of the Pettipuram Panchayat Court, and this Court launched a prosecution of the plaintiff (respondent) for an alleged offence committed in respect of a judicial proceeding before it under Section 174, I. P. C. It is not in dispute that the Panchayat Court passed a resolution that the plaintiff (respondent)should be so prosecuted, for alleged deliberate failure to appear in that Court notwithstanding service of summons, and that the appellant filed that criminal complaint purely in his capacity as the President of the Court, which was the real complainant. The criminal case ended in an acquittal. The plaintiff brought forward this action, alleging that there was prior enmity between him and the defendant (appellant) and that, in fact, the summonses in the Panchayat Court proceeding were not even sought to be served upon him.

(2.) THE learned District Munsif dismissed the suit with costs holding (upon issue 1) that Section 1 of the Judicial Officers Protection Act (Act XVIII) of 1850) was a total bar to the suit.

(3.) UPON a careful consideration of this matter, I am of the view that the appeal ought to be allowed, and that the order of the learned District Judge is manifestly erroneous. The judgment and decree of the learned District Munsif are perfectly correct, and, indeed, unassailable in my view. The learned District Judge has fallen into a confusion of ideas upon the matter. The question is not whether the defendant (appellant) was instrumental in persuading the Panchayat Court to pass such a resolution and to file such a complaint, and whether his instrumentality in this respect was due to prior enmity between the parties. The simple question is whether the filing of the complaint was not a judicial act done by the defendant in his capacity as the President of the Panchayat Court, and representing the juristic entity. I am qwite unable to see how there could be any difference of opinion upon this aspect. The analogy drawn by the learned District Judge of a person filing a compliant before the Police, and being liable to be sued in damages for false prosecution, notwithstanding the fact that the police actually prosecuted, is quite misleading and inapplicable. Once it is conceded that the complainant in this ease was the Panchayat Court, that the offence complained of was in relation to a judicial proceeding of that Court, and that the appellant acted in his official capacity as President of that Court. Section 1 of the Judicial Officers Protection Act (XVIII of 1850) would be a complete bar to any such suit. It is noteworthy that the words 'in good faith' occurring in Section 1 relate to the juris -dictional capacity, about which there is really no dispute in the present case, and not to any question of purity of motive. The very wide immunity granted by this Act has, in fact, come up for judicial comment. The argument that such wide and unqualified protection would sometimes cover the evil intentioned acts of corrupt judicial agencies was raised, but not considered as a good ground for any other view of the beneficent provision of this Act. Sir Lawrence Jenkins, C. J., tersely put the matter thus in Girjashankar v. Gopalji, ILR 30 Bom 241,