STATE Vs. ABANIKANTA ROY

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS is a case under S. 10 of the Indian Bar Councils Act regarding the conduct of one Shri Abani Kanta Roy and one Shri Sovesh Chandra Roy, both Advocates of this Court. Shri Abani Kanta Roy came into the picture as the official liquidator appointed by this Court. These Roys who are involved in these proceedings are two young members of the Bar. What happened was this :

(2.) ON August 9, 1954 Shri Abani Kanta Roy (hereinafter referred to as Shri Abani)was appointed as the Official Liquidator of the Lakshmi Hosiery Mills Ltd. (in liquidation) (hereinafter referred to as the company ). It appears that since June 1952, one Shri Gagan Behari Mahanti and Shri Golak Behari Mahanti (hereinafter referred to as the Mahantis) were in occupation of a certain house standing on holding No. 961/499 in Ward No. 21 of Cuttack Municipality which was taken on lease by the said Company. The said Mahantis did not pay anything either as rent or as damages for use and occupation of the said house with the consequence that when Shri Abani took over as Official Liquidator, about Rs. 7,000/- as arrears plus municipal taxes already became due from the Mahantis. On a report from the Official Liquidator in December 1954, Mr. Justice Rao, as the hon'ble Company Judge, by an order dated December 17, 1954 directed the official Liquidator to issue notice to the occupants of the said house and file a suit for recovery of possession of the house and the arrear rent. Accordingly, on january 19, 1955, the Official Liquidator gave Shri Gagan Behari Mohanti alone notice to vacate the house within fifteen days of the receipt of the said notice failing which the Official Liquidator would be compelled to file a suit for ejectment, recovery of damages and costs. Incidentally, the said notice was subsequently found to be defective. In reply to the said notice, Shri Gagan Behari Mohanti, by a letter dated February 4, 1955 (Ext. D) inter alia, raised a question as to who is entitled to realise the arrears of rent in respect of the house for reasons as stated in the said letter. On April 13, 1955, the Mohantis filed a petition (Ext. B) before the Hon'ble Company Judge, praying to allow them to pay the arrears in instalments at the rate of Rs. 500/- per quarter and permit them to occupy the house as tenant. Thereafter, by an order dated April 22, 1955 (Ext. E) Mr. Justice Rao directed that the entire house rent from April 14, 1954 up to the date of the said order should be paid to the Liquidator within fifteen days failing which the Liquidator was directed to take necessary action and the previous house rent was directed to be realised by the Liquidator in due course according to law. The Mahantis approached the Court many times with offer of compromise but ultimately failed to keep up and act up to the same and hence arose the necessity for taking action. Thereupon when the negotiation for compromise failed, the Official Liquidator by a memo dated April 27, 1955 (Ext. A) applied for grant of Rs. 1,022/- as court-fee and some money for lawyer's fee and incidental expenses. On April 29, 1955, the hon'ble Company Judge sanctioned Rs. 1,021/14/- only for court-fee and a sum of rs. 200/- only towards incidental expenses and approved of the appointment of shri Sovesh Chandra Roy (hereinafter referred to as Shri Sovesh) as lawyer to file and conduct the suit in, the Court of the Subordinate Judge, Cuttack. The Official Liquidator had withdrawn the money from the Treasury on May 1, 1955 for the purposes of filing the suit for ejectment and recovery of the arrears of rent against the Mahantis. The filing of the suit was thought to be very urgent as it was going to be barred on June 22, 1955. So far as the High Court was concerned, the matter rested there and it was left to the Official Liquidator and the Advocate engaged for the purpose to see to the filing of the suit for which court-fee and other incidental expenses had been sanctioned and actually paid to the Official liquidator.

(3.) UNTIL August, 1955 the High Court was not in the picture at all. On August 4, 1955 the said Mahantis by a petition (Ext. C) made an offer of compromise of the suit filed against them. When the compromise came before the Hon'ble Company judge for approval, it came to light for the first time that the court-fee had not been paid in full at the time of the filing of the suit. What these two young Roys actually did, will appear from the respective charges made against them which are set out as follows :--Re : Shri Abani Kanta Roy, Advocate official Liquidator charges (i) (a) He withdrew from the Treasury Rs. 1,221/14/- for filing the suit against the said Mahantis for ejectment and recovery of arrears of rent. But he filed the suit on June 22, 1955 with a court-fee of Re. 1/- and took time on three successive dates namely, Tune 22, 1955, July 28, 1955 and August 9, 1955, for payment of the court-fees by filing petitions with false representations to the Court that the money for court-fee was not available for payment. (b) He thus attempted to evade payment of court-fee in order to benefit the defendants in the suit and took risk of the plaint being rejected by the Subordinate Judge for non-payment of the court-fee without any justification and without intimation to the Hon'ble Company Judge who had already rejected the offer of a settlement and directed him to file a suit.