CHOGMAL SERAOGI Vs. EMPEROR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This Rule relates to an order made by the Munsif of Jangipur sitting as a Judge of the Small Cause Court by which he sentenced the petitioner to pay a fine of Rs. 50 for the contempt of Court. The contempt charged consists in this, that the petitioner had disobeyed an order of the Court.

(2.) It appears that the petitioner and another person had instituted a suit against two defendants in the Court of Small Causes for the recovery of money due on a hand-note. The suit was decreed with costs on the 12th July 1918. On the following day the defendants applied for a revival or re-trial of the suit. The application, which was in the nature of an application for. review of judgment, was put on the ground that the suit was a fraudulent suit and that the defendants had come to know of certain account-books belonging to the petitioner which contained entries showing that the claim was unfounded. Upon that the Munsif issued a notice upon the petitioner in the following terms: "You are hereby informed that the defendants in the above suit have prayed for a re-trial of the above case. You are, therefore, ordered to appear with the Kuncha Pucca Rockor and Khatian books of your shop on the 26th July 1918 and give your depositions, failing which the suit will be decided against you on the said day."

(3.) Our attention was invited by the learned Pleader for the petitioner to the fact that the notice speaks of the retrial of the suit and does not mention review of judgment. The wording is clumsy but for the present purpose it is not material to consider either the form of the notice or its substance and effect. It may be that having the application for review before him, the Munsif had jurisdiction to issue some such directions. Whatever may be said as to that, the petitioner did not comply with the terms of the notice. He did not appear before the Munsif on the 26th July and he did not produce his account-books. In that state of things, if the notice was a good notice and if it was shown that the petitioner had duly received it, it was open to the learned Munsif to deal with the matter in the petitioner s absence. But that is not the course which the Munsif took. Instead he called upon the petitioner to show cause why he should not be fined for his disobedience.