EMPEROR Vs. SATYENDRA NATH BOSE

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is a reference under Section 13(f), Legal Practitioners Act, in which Babu Satyendra Nath Bose, Mukhtear, is charged with having, contrary to the Rules of the Court, employed an unregistered clerk. It appears that he had a registered clerk named Khalilur Rahaman whose card was cancelled by the Additional District Magistrate, Tipperah, on 17 January 1936. It was found in July that Khalilur Rahaman was still working for the mukhtear in the Court compound though he did not actually enter in any of the Courts. The explanation of the mukhtear is that he believed that he was doing no wrong as Khalilur Rahman was not allowed to do any of those acts which only registered clerk may perform and particularly as he had told Khalilur Rahaman that he must not enter the Courts themselves and secondly that during the time he employed Khalilur Rahaman he was testing other likely persons with a view to employing one of them as his registered clerk and that he has since applied for the registration of the third of the men he tried. He also stated that if the view he had taken of the rules was an incorrect one he might be excused as he acted under a bona fide misconception. The learned District Judge finds that the mukhtear's attitude appears to have been produced by sheer good nature and not by contumacy and wilful negligence of the Additional District Magistrate's order, and that it would be difficult to label the mukhtear's action as gross misconduct and that Note 2 to Rule 975 may possibly have raised in the mind of the mukhtear an impression that he could employ an unregistered clerk at his own discretion. On referring to the Rules it appears that the mukhtear on his application for the registration of the clerk made a statement undertaking not to employ an unregistered clerk during the year as shown by Section 978(2), (3). Under Section 974 a registered clerk is defined as meaning a clerk who is employed by a pleader or mukhtear in connection with his legal business and who is registered under these Rules. Section 975 says: A registered clerk shall for the purpose of performing the ministerial part of the work of his employer's office have access to any Court in which the latter is authorized to practice and to such of its ministerial officers as may in that behalf be designated by the presiding Judge of such Court.

(2.) Note 2 of the Section says: No person employed by a pleader or mukhtear other than a registered clerk shall be allowed access to any of the Courts of the district or to have any dealing with the ministerial officers attached thereto.

(3.) It is therefore contended that a registered clerk means a clerk who is employed in connection with the legal business and who has access to the Courts and ministerial officers. This is confirmed by reference to the old rules which say the expression recognized clerk means a clerk employed by a pleader or mukhtear and permitted as such, to have access to the Courts in which his employer is authorized to practice and to the officers attached thereto It is urged that under Section 978(2), (3) the statement made on the application undertaking not to employ an unregistered clerk means that he undertakes not to employ an unregistered clerk to do the business of a registered clerk, that is to say that he undertakes not to employ any clerk who will require for the performance of his work access to the Court or to the ministerial officers. This is an interpretation which may reasonably be put upon the rules and it does not appear that the mukhtear actually offended against the rules in employing a clerk otherwise than a clerk requiring access to the Courts or to the ministerial officers. After all the Court is concerned with those clerks who have access to the Courts or to the ministerial officers. If the mukhtear, for instance, likes to engage a typist to type his letters or to help him as a clerk to do his business outside the Court it does not appear that the Court can have any objection to the appointment of such a clerk. We think therefore that in view of the fact that the clerk employed by the mukhtear was not allowed access to the Court or to the ministerial staff the mukhtear cannot be regarded to have done anything which would bring him under the provisions of Section 13(f), Legal Practitioners Act. The reference is therefore rejected in view of the fact that the mukhtear cannot be held to have committed any offence which renders him liable to be punished under Section 13(f) of the Act.