(1.) THE petitioner in this application and his wife filed a suit O.S.No. 9312 of 1984 on the file of the XI Assistant Judge, City Civil Court, Madras for damages for malicious prosecution against the first respondent herein. THE second respondent is the counsel appearing for the first respondent in the said suit. THE first respondent filed an application C.M.P.No.2428 of 1985 before the learned Principal City Civil Judge, Madras for transferring the aforesaid suit from the file of the XI Assistant Judge to the file of some other Judge. In support of the said application, the first respondent filed an affidavit, the relevant portion of which runs as follows: --
(2.) ALLEGING that the aforesaid averments in the said affidavit constituted 'Criminal Contempt of Court' the,-present application is filed with the sanction of the Advocate-General. Though the transfer petition was ultimately not pressed because the suit was administratively transferred to the Court of the XIX Assistant Judge along with 41 other suits, the question remains whether the respondents are guilty of contempt of Court by filing the affidavit containing the aforesaid allegations against the X: Assistant Judge. It is no doubt true that the petitioner has wrongly alleged in the application for contempt that the application for transfer of suit was not pressed because the first respondent was not bold enough to face the enquiry in the transfer application. It is also true that the petitioner has not in this application for Contempt Referred to the factum of administrative transfer of the suit even before the application for transfer was heard. That will not in any way be relevant for deciding the matter in issue.
(3.) I submit that the petitioner has no personal knowledge about the preferential conduct and treatment displayed by the then XI Asst. Judge in matters in which I appeared as counsel before him when he was the XI Asst. Judge, Court of Small Causes, Madras as Rent Controller and later as XIX Asst. Judge, XVIII Asst. Judge, XVII Asst. Judge and XI Asst. Judges, Thiru Sampathkumaran was a practising lawyer in the office of Mr.Chandran Jayapal, a close friend and collegue of mine, who is no more now. The prejudice he has developed as a junior of that counsel and he has displayed the same even after he had joined the Subordinate Judicial Service. In the face of such a conduct, there was no need or occasion for me in my personal capacity to make a complaint or otherwise raise a row except to place it before the clients whose matters come up for disposal before the concerned presiding officer requiring the clients in their own interest to make alternate arrangement. If after such disclosure, the clients had pReferred to have disposal through me before the said presiding Officer, I did not for a moment shirk in the conduct of the trial or enquiry and getting any verdict given in such matters duly communicated to them. The clients have also pursued the matter further by way of appeal or revision. I most respectfully submit that such a conduct on my part as a practitioner could not in the eye of law amount to indictment of the Presiding Officer of the Court or would be within the realm of the allegation now made of holding the Court in terrorem." 4. The second respondent has also filed a supplemental counter affidavit in which he has given a list of cases in which he appeared before the concerned Judge and the decision went against his clients.