RADHEY LAL Vs. NIRANJAN NATH

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Lala Radhey Lal, a moneylender of Agra, is the applicant before us. He prays (1) that Niranjan Nath, the opposite party, may be dealt with and punished according to law for contempt of Court of the insolvency Court of Agra which is seized of the insolvency case filed by the petitioner against Ram Chand Niranjan Nath and (2) that the proceedings in the criminal case under Section 500, Penal Code (Seth Niranjan Nath, complainant versus Lala Radhey Lal, accused) pending in the Court of the City Magistrate of Agra be stayed till the decision of this application. The facts seem to be that Niranjan Nath carries on business at Agra as a bookseller and is also a military contractor. He had occasion to borrow money on negotiable hundis in the market of Agra. The hundis were drawn in favour of creditors and such hundis sometimes used to be endorsed in favour of other persons. In the mon April, 1940, some of the hundis drawn by Niranjan Nath fell due and although some of them were paid by the endorsers they were not paid by the drawer Niranjan Nath, whereas some others were not honoured at all. On 25 May 1940 Lala Radhey Lal filed an application in the Court of the insolvency Judge of Agra against Ram Chand Niranjan Nath through Niranjan Nath praying that the opposite party be declared insolvent and a receiver be appointed of his property and his estate be administered according to law. In this application Lala Radhey Lal makes mention of five hundis which came to be held in due course by Lala Radhey Lal the amounts of which hundis were not paid by Niranjan Nath. It was stated in para. 5: That the business of the opposite party failed and he suspended payment on or about Chait Sudi 5, Sambat 1997, corresponding to 11 April, 1940, and has as a matter of fact given notice to his creditors that he cannot pay his debts for the last time again on or about the second week of May 1940.

(2.) In para. 6 it was said: That with the object of bringing pressure on the creditors the opposite party also gives out that he has transferred his property to his relations. The applicant does not admit this but in any view if there is any such transfer it is entirely bogus farzi and fraudulent.

(3.) Notice of this application was issued to Niranjan Nath and was served some time in the first week of June. It is however admitted that Niranjan Nath came to know of this application on 26 May 1940 through one of his servants and he then obtained a copy of the application in order to file his objections in the civil Court, but such copy was delivered to him on 2 June, 1940 and the civil Courts had by that time closed for the long summer vacation. On 10 June 1940, Niranjan Nath filed a complaint in the Court of the City Magistrate of Agra under Section 500, I.P.C., against Lala Radhey Lal. He alleged in this complaint that he was a rais and an approved Government military contractor and a reputed business man of Agra coming from a respectable and rich family and that he was a fellow of the Royal Society of London and paid substantial amount of income-tax and last year was assessed to income-tax of Rs. 867-3-0 on an income of Rs. 11,500. The complainant said that the accused was a near relation of the complainant's rivals in his trade of books and with a view to affect his credit in the market adversely made the following false statements in the course of an insolvency petition filed by him without justification and with absolutely false allegations on 25 May 1940 and thereby caused the complainant's credit to fall in the estimation of his fellow business men and in the money market generally: That the business of the opposite party failed and he suspended payment on or about Chait Sudi 5, Sambat 1997 corresponding to 11 April, 1940 and has as a matter of fact given notice to his creditors that he cannot pay his debts.