DISTRICT JUDGE OF KISTNA Vs. CHANUMANULU

JUDGEMENT

(1.) In this case the District Munsif of Bezwada has taken proceedings under Section 14 of the Legal Practitioners Act (XVIII of 1879) against a second-grade pleader practising in his Court. The charge as framed is for contempt of Court covered by Section 13(f) of the Legal Practitioners Act and a preliminary objection has been taken that a Subordinate Court is not authorized to take proceedings under Section 14 in cases which come under Clause (f) of Section 13 "for any other reasonable cause" and is confined to cases failing under Clauses (a) and (b). There was some ground for this view under the corresponding Sections 15 and 16 of Act XX of 1865, as the former section gave a power of suspension or dismissal for "fraudulent or other grossly improper conduct in the discharge of his professional duty or for any other reasonable cause" while the Subordinate Court was only empowered to investigate charges of "such conduct as aforesaid" and accordingly it was held in In the matter of the petition of Gholab Khan (1871) 7 B.L.R. 179 that cases which did not come under " fraudulent or other grossly improper conduct in the exercise of professional duty but under any other reasonable cause" were not covered by Section 16 of that Act. Following this decision, Hill, J., in In the matter of Purna Chandra Pal (1900) I.L.R. 27 Calc. 1023 expressed the opinion that the words in Section 14, "taking instructions except as aforesaid" referred to Clause (a) of Section 13 and that the words "any such misconduct as aforesaid" referred to Clause (b) "fraudulently or grossly improper conduct in the discharge of his professional duty" and that a Subordinate Court had no power to take action in cases falling within Clause (c), (d), (e) or (f) of that section. This restrictive construction is not supported by the judgment of their Lordships of the Judicial Committee in In the matter of Southekul Krishna Rao (1887) 14 I.A. 154 to which Hill, J., referred, as in that case no question as to Clause (f) of Section 13 arose or was considered and it was apparently doubted by Krishnaswami Ayyar. J., in In the matter of the Second- grade Pleaders (1911) I.L.R. 34 Mad. 29 at p. 34. Further as pointed out by Knox, J., in In the matter of the petition of Mahomed Abdul Hai (1907) I.L.R. 29 All. 61 it ignores the fact that Clauses (c), (d) and (e) were introduced into Section 13 by Act XI of 1896, There is no good reason why charges under these clauses should not be investigated in the first instance by the Subordinate Court, and it would be very inconvenient if they could not. Their introduction into Section 13 of the Act without any amendment of Section 14 goes rather to show as observed by GHOSE, J., in In the matter of Puma Chander Pal (1) that Section 14 as it stood was deemed wide enough to cover them, and on the whole we agree with the view of KNOX, J,, that Section 14 covers all the clauses of Section 13. We think therefore that the objection that the District Munsif had no jurisdiction to take proceedings against the practitioner in respect of conduct alleged to come within Clause (f) of Section 13 must be overruled.

(2.) In this view it is not very material whether the charges should not have been under Clause (b) "for grossly improper conduct in the discharge of professional duty" rather than under Clause (f) "for any other reasonable cause" as the facts are fully set out in the charge and the respondent was in no way prejudiced.

(3.) Further it is now well settled that Clause (f) is not confined to cases of misconduct ejusdem generis as those referred to in the preceding clauses but includes other cases of misconduct as well, and may therefore well be considered to include the present case in which the alleged misconduct consisted in the pleader s conduct towards the Court and not to the parties in the case. See In the matter of Puma Chandra Pal (1900) I.L.R. 27 Calc. 1023 at p. 1027 and In the matter of a Pleader (1903) I.L.R. 26 Mad. 448.