GEETA DEVI Vs. SUDESH KUMAR SHARMA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Sudesh Kumar Sharma, respondent, a practising Advocate at Chenani, filed a complaint before Munsiff, Judicial Magistrate First Class, Chenani, saying that he had conducted the Claim Petition of one Geeta Devi before Motor Accidents Claims Tribunal, Udhampur for 15 years, final judgment wherein was delivered on 10-11 -2003.

(2.) It was on 5-12-2005 that the complainant, Sudesh Kumar Sharma, along with his Clerk Ikhlaq Ahmed, and two others, namely Ram Singh s/o. Mathura and Makhan Singh, went to the house of Geeta Devi to demand payment of the fee due to the Advocate. Geeta Devi is alleged to have refused to acknowledge the complainant and instead used defamatory and unparliamentary language by calling him thief, thug and fraudulent lawyer. On this basis, a complaint under Section 500, RPC was filed before Judicial Magistrate First Class, Chenani, who vide his order dated 6-12-2003, issued process against Geeta Devi under Section 500, R. P. C.

(3.) Geeta Devi, petitioner, has questioned the process issued against her by learned Judicial Magistrate First Class, Chenani. She says that the allegations in the complaint were inherently improbable and that process of the Court had been misused by the Advocate. She submits that her husband died in a motor accident in Chenani in 1987. Left with no source of income, she had been putting hard labour, day and night to make a living for herself and her four minor children. She further says that an interim compensation of Rs. 15,000/- was awarded by Motor Accidents Claims Tribunal, Udhampur, and out of this amount, an amount of Rs. 9,000/- was taken by the learned Advocate. She says that on every date of hearing, the respondent would charge her between Rs. 2,000/- to Rs.1,000/-. She further submits that the award of the Claims Tribunal was questioned in this Court, but she could not engage any counsel because of paucity of funds. The appeals, it is alleged, were clubbed together and, accordingly, decided on 17th of October, 2001. Petitioner submitted that neither had she engaged the respondent as her counsel in the High Court nor any counsel on her behalf appeared in the High Court before the LPA Bench. The Insurance Company having been refused stay by the Supreme Court of India, facilitated the petitioner to file an execution petition before the Motor Accidents Claims Tribunal, Udhampur. Petitioner submits that she had not engaged the respondent either in the High Court or in the Supreme Court or at the time of the filing the execution application. Despite all this, the respondent had been demanding an amount of Rupees 30,000/- from the petitioner and it was because of petitioner's not responding to the illegal demand of the respondent that he had initiated criminal proceedings before the Court of Judicial Magistrate First Class, Chenani.