BISHWANATH SINGH Vs. JANNATH PANDEY

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is a deft.'s application in revision against a decree of the Court of Small Causes at Jaunpur granted in favour of a legal practitioner in respect of his fees. There was no specific con-tract between the legal practitioner & his client. The taxable fee in the case was Rs. 516. The applicant had engaged three legal practitioners to appear & work for him. The plff. brought a suit to recover a sum of Rs. 153. He had already been paid Rs. 100 before the institution of the suit. The claim for Rs. 158 was based on the ground that the plff. was entitled to half the legal fee. The Court below has granted him a decree for Rs. 72 only.

(2.) It being a case where the fee had not been privately settled between the legal practitioner & the client, the case must be governed by the second portion of Section 4, Legal Practitioners (Fees) Act (xxi [21] of 1926, which provides as follows :

(3.) It is contended by the learned counsel for the applicant that there being three legal practitioners in the case, the plff. became entitled to only one third of the taxable fee. He contends that Section 4 should be interpreted to mean that where no fee has been settled all the legal practitioners appearing in a case for a particular client are together entitled to the taxable fee & that they must share this fee amongst themselves. I am unable to accept this interpretation of Section 4 of the Act, the meaning of which in my opinion, clearly is that every legal practitioner, in the absence of a definite contract, is entitled to the full legal taxable fee. If a litigant is not desirous of paying the full legal fee it is his duty to settle the fee with the legal practitioner before engaging him. To accept the contention of the learned counsel would lead to very undesirable results. For example, a litigant having engaged one legal practitioner at the beginning of the case may continue to engage other legal practitioners subsequently & if the contention of the learned counsel is to be accepted, then on each fresh engagement, the fee payable to the legal practitioners previously engaged will continue to diminish. In my opinion the fee of a legal practitioner cannot be made dependable upon the vagaries of the client according to which he may continue to engage other legal practitioners. The plff. opposite-party was therefore entitled to a decree for Rs. 168.