RAMRATAN Vs. SHRIDHAR KALLA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS is a complaint by one Ramratan Maheshwari, resident of village Deshnok, tehsil Bikaner, for professional misconduct against Shri Shridhar Kalla, an advocate of this Court. Shri Kalla has been practising in Jaipur for the last three or four years but was regularly practising in the Courts at Jodhpur upto 1952.

(2.) THE allegations made by the petitioner in his petition dated 28-10-1953, may be briefly summarised as follows. The petitioner's case is that he had engaged Shri kalla in three cases from 1948 onwards. In the first place, he had engaged Shri kalla to file a suit against Tarachand and Leelchand sons of Khivraj of Barmer for rs. 1098/4/6 in the Court of the Munsiff, Jodhpur City, and that he had paid him a sum of Rs. 125/- on account of his professional fees and expenses (Rs. 50/-by way of remuneration and Rs. 75/- for court-fees, and certain incidental expenses)in connection with this suit on or about 11-3-1948. Ramratan's case further is that immediately after this engagement he had personally given all the original documents to Shri Kalla to be filed with the plaint and that a plaint had also been prepared by the latter and that he had signed that and a Vakalatnama as well, and gave all these papers to Sri Kalla for presenting them in Court. The petitioner's complaint is that Shri Kalla filed this suit (No. 255 of 1951) as late as 2-7-1951 (as a matter of fact the suit was filed on 2-6-1951, which was the last working day before the summer vacation in 1951) and that the plaint was filed on a court-fee of Rs. 5/- only and without the original documents or even a list of documents and further that the plaint which was actually presented in Court in 1951 by Shri Kalla did not bear the petitioner's signature nor did the power of attorney filed with the plaint bear his signature. The petitioner's case is that Shri Kalla had not filed the suit for a long time for some reason best known to him, and that as the petitioner was not satisfied with the answers given by Shri Kalla to his verbal and other inquiries made by him from time to time, he arranged to serve Shri Kalla With a registered notice through another counsel Shri Nandlal Advocate of Bikaner, which was received by Shri kalla on 3-6-1950 (vide postal acknowledgment Ex. 4), and that he further gave a registered letter (vide its copy Ex. 8) on 7-3-1952, which was also received by shri Kalla on 11-3-1952 (vide postal acknowledgment Ex. 9) and that later when he came to Jodhpur and inspected the file on 26-10-1953, he came to know of the gross-negligence, misappropriation and misconduct committed by Shri Kalla in connection with this case in the above-mentioned respects. The petitioner further stated that Shri Kalla had never returned the original documents to him nor were they available on the Court record. In the second place, the petitioner's complaint was that he had engaged Shri Kalla to file a suit against Hiralal Bhanwarlal and certain other persons (Suit No. 25 of 1948-49) in the Court of District Judge, Jodhpur, also early in 1948, and that in connection with that suit he had paid Shri Kalla a sum of Rs. 101/8/-to defray witness expenses, apart from the latter's fees and other incidental costs. His grievance is that as he had brought all his witnesses and paid for them himself, this money remained with Shri Kalla and that he did not return the same. The last allegation is that the petitioner had also engaged Shri Kalla to file a suit against the firm Magurnal Dholandas (Suit No. 408 of 1950) in the Court of the munsiff, Jodhpur City. The suit was filed against Sindhi Jiwandas proprietor of the said firm and was for a sum of Rs. 1280/- and was actually instituted on 3-7-1950. The petitioner's grievance is that in addition to the sum of Rs. 101/8/-which remained with Shri Kalla as already stated in connection with the second case above, he further gave a sum of Rs. 50/-to Shri Kalla in connection with this suit but the latter retained these monies (i. e. , 151/8/-) and did not file any suit against magumal Dholandas. The petitioner, therefore, complained to this Court that Shri Kalla had improperly retained the former's monies and that he had displayed utter negligence in conducting his cases and was further guilty of gross professional misconduct, and prayed for appropriate action against him.

(3.) AS the allegations made against Shri Kalla Were prima facie serious, the matter was referred to a tribunal of the Bar Council for inquiry and report. The tribunal has conducted the inquiry and submitted its report dated 16-12-1955.