STATE Vs. DEBABRATA BANDOPADHYAY DIST MAGISTRATE NADIA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) On this Rule the District Magistrate of Nadia Mr. Debabrata Bandopadhyay, I.A. S., is standing his trial for contempt of court, on the ground of forcibly turning out Mr. M. Roy, the learned Subordinate Judge, Nadia from his residence at Circuit House and thereby compelling him to leave his station of justice and also making it imposstble for him to hold his Court for four days and a half and bringing down the Judge, In the estimation of the local public. The situation is unprecedented in the annals ef public services in India. The facts and circumstances revealed on the record, are of momentous significance. Affidavits disclose most distressing and deplorable features in the administration, which will continue to serve as a serious warning and lesson long after the memory of this case fades away.

(2.) On the 22nd January, 1964, by the order of this Magistrate the learned Subordinate Judge of the district was literally driven out of his room in the Circuit House at Nadia, where he was obliged to stay for acute want of accommodation in the district. At the relevant hour and the time the learned Judge was actually conducting a sessions case and performing his judicial duties in the Court. While he was in the court, under orders of this Magistrate, the Judge's room was locked in his absence. Under this District Magistrate's orders the Judge's personal belongings were seized, publicly inventoried before public witnesses of the place where the learned Judge was expected to administer justice and command public faith and all the Judge's articles, bags and baggages were publicly carried away and despatched to the Police Malknana. Deprived of all his belongings except his wearng apparel and publicly humiliated in the station of his judi cial authority and jurisdiction, the Judge was left utterly destitute without a penny in his pocket so that he had to borrow money to purchase his railway ticket to return to Calcutta to make his administrative representation to this Court.

(3.) By that act of the Magistrate, the Court of the learned Judge could not be held and the judicial work in the district was dislocated and disrupted. In fact, the Judge could not hold his Court from 2 p.m. in the afternoon of the 22nd January 1964, the day of the incident, and the whole of the 24th, 25th, 28th and the 29th January, 1964. Under directions of this Court to finish the sessions trial which he had begun, and to keep the magisterially battered flag of justice still flying he attendad Krishnagar Court as a daily Railway passenger from Calcutta on the 30th and the 31st January, 1964 to complete the trial. He also attended as such daily passenger on the 1st and the 3rd February, 1964 and ultimately a different room was given to him again in the Circuit; House on the 4th February, 1964 and his articles returned! Shorn of all details, these are the bare facts constituting the charge of contempt against this District Magistrate.