STATE Vs. BHAGAT RAM SEHGAL

JUDGEMENT

(1.) A notice for contempt was issued to the opposite party Bhagat Ram Sehgal at the instance of the District Magistrate of Amritsar. He made a report to the Court that the opposite party had a case pending in the Court of Mr. Sumat Prasad Jain, a Magistrate at Amritsar, and that on the 31st October, 1953 at 11 a.m. the opposite party went to the court room of the Magistrate and after handing over his visiting card sought a private interview. As the visiting card gave rather an honorific title to the opposite party the Magistrate asked him to come and sit on a chair on the dais, and the opposite party told the Magistrate that he had a case brought against him by the Registrar, Joint Stock Companies, which was pending in the Court of the said Magistrate and requested that the case should be adjourned that day as he was trying to get the case withdrawn. The Magistrate being new to the district did not say anything to Bhagat Ram Sehgal but he did not like his approaching him (the Magistrate).

(2.) After the case was called and an adjournment given the Magistrate told the counsel for Bhagat Ram Sehgal that his client should not do such a thing again, and according to the report Bhagat Ram Sehgal "butted in and remarked that he had done nothing improper." The Magistrate then rebuked him for his this and told him that he would arrested for contempt of Court. Bhagat Ram Sehgal then kept quiet and went away.

(3.) The opposite party sent the following postcard to the Magistrate -