SHIV NARAIN JAFA Vs. JUDGES OF HIGH COURT

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This appeal has been brought by an advocate of the High Court of Judicature at Allahabad from a judgment of that Court convicting him of professional misconduct and suspending him from practice for a period of three months. The appellant, Mr. Shiva Narain Jafa, was practising as an advocate at Badaun, a district situated in the United Provinces of India ; and in the beginning of 1927 he was engaged to defend a suit instituted by one Bhagwant Singh, against two brothers, Bhau Singh and Lachhman Singh. On 22 January, 1927, he filed in the Court of the District Judge, who was hearing the case, a vakalatnama (power of attorney) signed by both the defendants. It appears that they were, at that time, undergoing imprisonment for certain offences, of which they had been convicted ; and the appellant, who had been paid only a portion of his fee, submitted on 8 March 1927, an application to the District Judge in these terms :

(2.) In the above case it is submitted that I have been looking after this case on behalf of my clients almost from the beginning of January up to this time. The pairokars of the clients have, up to this time, paid me Rs. 140. Now a new Act has come into force from 1926 and according to it a vakil is entitled to get his legal fee and he can realize his money by filing a suit after the case is over. My clients are poor these days and actually they cannot pay up my full fee at present. If my clients will execute, in my favour, a promissory note for the amount of the remaining fee, I shall, according to law, file the certificate of fee and the defendants shall be entitled to recover the same from the plaintiff. If the promissory note is not executed, I shall not file the certificate and the defendants will suffer a double loss, because they shall have to make the payment to me and they shall not be entitled to recover the same from the plaintiff. Therefore the prisoners may be sent for and the matter may be explained to them. If they will execute the promissory note, it will be in their own interests.

(3.) Thereupon, the District Judge recorded on that day the following brief order : "Permitted." The defendants were then brought into the Court room, but they did not sign the promissory note, as it is explained, they being prisoners could not execute any document without the permission of the local authorities. Whether there is any justification for this explanation, their Lordships are not in a position to determine : but they observe that a promissory note was actually executed on that very day by Mt. Pania, the wife of Bhau Singh, who had given her a general power of attorney to act on his behalf. This instrument contained a promise by her to pay on demand Rs. 735, the balance of the fee due to the appellant. It is not disputed that be himself produced it before the District Judge for his perusal, and the latter placed it upon the record of the case. Having obtained the promissory note for the balance of his fee, the appellant filed a certificate, in which he stated that he bad received Rs. 140 in cash and Rs. 735 "by means of promissory note." On 10 March 1927, the District Judge delivered judgment dismissing the plaintiff's claim with costs. A decree, which followed upon the judgment, was duly prepared, and the sum of Rs. 735 was included in the amount of the costs to be paid by the plaintiff, Bhagwant Singh,to the defendants. To this decree no objection was taken by Bhagwant Singh, either at the time of the taxation of costs in the trial Court, or in the appeal which he preferred to the High Court on the merits of the case. It is to be observed that his appeal was ultimately dismissed for want of prosecution.