Mr. 'G', A Senior Advocate of The
Supreme Court Vs. The Hon'ble Chief Justice And Judges Of The High Court [1954]
INSC 77 (27 May 1954)
DAS, SUDHI RANJAN MUKHERJEA, B.K.
BOSE, VIVIAN HASAN, GHULAM JAGANNADHADAS, B.
CITATION: 1954 AIR 560 1955 SCR 501
ACT:
Indian Bar Councils Act, (XXXVIII of 1926),
s. 10(2)-Whether order under s. 10(2) may be oral-If High Court can act"
on. its own notion."
HEADNOTE:
The order under section 10(2) of the Indian
Bar Councils Act, 1926, given to a proper officer of the Court may be an oral
order and need not be a written one.
The High Court can under section 10(2) refer
a case on its own motion.
ORIGINAL JURISDICTION: Petition No. 254 of
1954.
Under article 32 of the Constitution for the
enforcement of fundamental rights. The petitioner in Person.
M. C. Setalvad, Attorney-General for India,
(G. N. Joshi and P.G. Gokhale, with him) for the respondents.
1954. Mai 27. The Judgment of the Court was
delivered by BOSE J.-This is a petition under article 32 of Constitution and
raises the same question on the merits as in the connected summons case in
which we have just delivered- judgment. The facts will be found there. In the
present matter it is enough to say that no question arises about the breach of
a fundamental right. But as a matter touching the jurisdiction of the Bar
Council Tribunal and that of the Bombay High Court was argued, we will deal
with it shortly.
Mr. G's first objection is that the
proceedings before the Tribunal were ultra vires because there was no proper
order.
of appointment. At a very early stage he
applied to the Registrar and also to the Prothonotary for a copy of the order
of the Chief Justice constituting 502 the Tribunal. He was told by the
Prothonotary that the order was oral.
Mr. ' G', put in two written statements
before the Tribunal and did not challenge this statement of fact in either. He
contented himself with saying that the 'order was not "judicial" and
so-was not valid. He took up the same attitude in the High Court. The learned
Judges said- "The record clearly shows that when it came to, the notice of
this Court it was decided to refer this case to the Bar Council under section
10(2) and accordingly a Tribunal was appointed under section 11(1) by the
learned Chief justice of this Court." In his petition to this Court he did
not challenge this statement of fact but again confined his attack to the
question of the validity of the order. It is evident from all this that the
fact that an oral order was made was not challenged. We cannot allow Mr. 'G' to
go behind that.
The next question is whether an oral order is
enough:
Bar Councils Act does not lay down any
procedure. All it says is- Section 10(2):
".............. the High Court may of
its own motion so refer any case in which it has otherwise reason to believe
that any such advocate has been so guilty." and section 11 (2) says--
"The Tribunal shall consist of not less than three.........
members of the Bar Council appointed for the
purpose of the inquiry by the Chief Justice." We agree it is necessary
that there should be some record of the order on the files but, in our opinion,
the order itself need not be a written one; it can be an oral order given to a
proper officer of the Court. In the present case, the letter No. G-1003 dated
29th April, 1953, of the Prothonotary to the Registrar and the letter No. E.
41-09/53 dated the 1st May, 1953, of the Registrar to the Bar Council (office
copies of which were retained on the files) are a sufficient record of the
making of the order. Mr. 'G' was supplied with copies 503 of those letters and
so was aware of the fact that orders had been issued. As a matter of fact, we
have seen the originals of the High Court's office files and find that the
names of the three members of the Tribunal are in the Chief Justice's
handwriting with his initials underneath. That is an additional record of the
making of the order. We hold that an order recorded in the, manner set out
above is sufficient for the purposes of sections 10(2) and 11(2) of the Bar
Councils Act and hold that the Tribunal was validly appointed.
Mr. G's next point is that there was no
"complaint" to the High Court and so it had no jurisdiction to refer
the matter to the Tribunal. This ignores the fact that the High Court can refer
a matter of this kind "of its own motion" under section 10(2) of the
Bar Councils Act.
We have dealt with the merits in the
connected case.
This petition is dismissed but, here again,
we make no order about costs.
Petition dismissed.
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