SASHADHAR ACHARJYA Vs. SIR CHARLES TEGART

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is an application to this Court by two persons against certain named opposite parties with an indication that other unnamed opposite parties whose names the petitioners have not yet discovered are to be included. The petitioners complain against certain officers of the Calcutta police in respect of certain acts done by them at Chandanagore in the territory of France where to put the matter shortly, a raid was conducted upon a house of which the first petitioner and the second petitioner appear to be tenants or sub-tenants.

(2.) The prayers in the petition are numerous; but the first matter is this, it is alleged that the first opposite party Sir Charles Tegart, the Commissioner of Police, who had been unsuccessfully prosecuted by the petitioners before the Chief Presidency Magistrate gave an undertaking to this High Court when dealing with an application in revision which undertaking he has broken and thereby made himself amenable to the jurisdiction of this Court in contempt. Upon examination, this charge appears to be altogether unfounded. It appears that at the argument in the revision case before the High Court, the petitioners advocate stated that Sir Charles Tegart was proposing to leave the jurisdiction of this Court and he was assured by the Advocate-General that he (Advocate-General) would not have been appearing for Sir Charles had there been any question of his evading the jurisdiction of the Court by going away. On the night of 5 March, it seems Sir Charles left Calcutta for England and, on the afternoon of the 6th, the application of the petitioners was altogether dismissed. In these circumstances, in May, a petition was presented complaining, as I understand it, not that Sir Charles Tegart was obliged to wait until the petitioners should bring another petition or another six petitions against him. They complain as we now know that whereas it would have been quite right for Sir Charles Tegart to leave Calcutta on the evening of the 6th, it was contempt of Court for him to leave Calcutta on the evening of the 5th. It seems to me that this mere statement is sufficient to show that this Court cannot possibly think it a fit case in which to take any proceeding in contempt against the Police Commissioner.

(3.) The next matter is this: the petitioners have been unable apparently to prosecute their complaint in Chandarnagore under the French law; they have been unable to get the Political Agent or the Local Government to give any certificate for the prosecution of anybody in British India. They have been unable to get the sanction of the Local Government under Section 197, Criminal P.C. They know perfectly well that the Advocate-General or any other officer on behalf of the Government is not willing to commence a proceeding under Clause 24 of the Letters Patent. In order to get over this difficulty, an application is made to this Court to recommend to the Local Government that the petitioners advocate should be clothed with the powers of the Advocate-General or other person appointed on behalf of the Local Government. Before us this somewhat remarkable application has been started by a contention that as the Advocate-General appeared in defence of this officer of the Government--the Commissioner of Police--at the hearing of the application in revision before the High Court, he has ceased to be the Advocate-General and therefore this Court ought to recommend to the Local Government to do something superseding him. That seems to me to be a confused and extravagant application which may be dismissed without further comment.