EMPEROR Vs. JEHANGIR MJASSAWALLA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) At the time of hearing criminal revision application No. 369 of 1946 brought to this Court by Mr. Jassawalla against Mr. Vaney, it was brought to this Court's attention that these two persons were engaged in a bitter dispute with regard to some property at Juhu, and as a result were indulging in a multplicity of criminal proceedings in the Magistrates Courts of this City, involving not only each other but also in some of the cases the relatives and servants of each other respectively. These mutual recriminations usually take the course of criminal proceedings of defamation under Section 500 of the Indian Penal Code, and some of these cases to which this Court's attention was drawn appeared very frivolous and vexatious, and we enquired generally from the Magistrates about the number of the criminal complaints of this type, which had been filed at the instance of these two persons. In the result on July 8, 1.946, in rejecting the revisional application to which I have referred, we ordered that the record and proceedings of all the cases commenced by Mr. Jassawalla and by Mr. Vaney since September 1, 1944, in the Presidency Magistrates Courts in Bombay and Greater Bombay be called for, and we also directed notices to be served upon both of them to show cause why an order should not be made against them as vexatious litigants, prohibiting them from commencing any proceedings in any Magistrate's Court for two years.

(2.) The information and documents received from the Magistrates Courts are now before us, and they show that Mr. Jassawalla has commenced four proceedings against Mr. Vaney, all of which ended in acquittals, and Mr. Shroff, a friend of Mr. Jassawalla, has also commenced proceedings against Mr. Vaney which ended in Mr. Vaney being fined Rs. 250. On the other hand, Mr. Vaney has commenced or re-commenced eighteen criminal complaints against Mr. Jassawalla, his relatives, friends and servants and has instigated a further proceeding by his servant against a servant of Mr. Jassawalla. Of these nineteen proceedings, seven are still pending, and all the rest have been unsuccessful. In addition to that Mr. Vaney also commenced criminal proceedings under Section 405 of the Indian Penal Code against the Meridian Watch Co., and another, in which the accused were acquitted but Mr. Vaney was fined for his contempt of Court. This case Mr. Vaney brought in revision to this Court, but it was dismissed. It is clear that not only has a great waste of time of the Magistrates Courts taken place, but also the processes of those Courts have been abused.

(3.) The learned Government Pleader appears to support the rule, and the short point for our decision is whether this Court has the power to make an order prohibiting a person, in such circumstances, from commencing any further proceedings on the ground that he is a vexatious litigant, for, in my opinion, in Mr. Vaney's ease there is no doubt that he is a vexatious litigant. The Government Pleader relies upon Section 561A of the Criminal P. C., which was introduced as a new section by 1923 Amendment Act. That section is in these terms: Nothing in this Code shall be deemed to limit or affect the inherent power of the High Court to make such orders as may be necessary to give effect to any order under this Code, or to prevent abuse of the process of any Court or otherwise to secure the ends of justice. But it has been laid down by the highest authority, and also by a full bench of this Court (see Emperor V/s. Nazir Ahmed (1944) 47 Bom. L.R. 245, P.C. and Rogers V/s. Shrinivas (1940) 42 Born. L.R. 478) that this section does not give this Court any new power which it did not possess before. It only provides that those inherent powers which the Court possesses shall be preserved, and its object is to remove any doubt that the Court's powers are not exclusively circumscribed by the Code itself. The Code provides no express power to curtail the ordinary rights of a citizen to initiate criminal proceedings, however vexatious they may be. So the question is whether this Court inherently has such a power.