Rewritten Judgment

Rewritten Version Notice: This is a rewritten version of the original judgment.

Court: Supreme Court of India

Case Number: Not extracted

Decision Date: 27 May, 1954

Coram: Vivian Bose, Ghulam Hasan

In this case, the Court noted that the petition had been filed under article 32 of the Constitution and that it raised the same substantive question that had been presented in the connected summons case for which judgment had already been delivered. The factual background of that earlier case was referred to, and the Court observed that, for the present petition, no issue was raised concerning the violation of any fundamental right. However, the petition did raise a matter concerning the jurisdiction of the Bar Council Tribunal as well as the jurisdiction of the Bombay High Court, and the Court indicated that it would consider those jurisdictional points shortly.

The first objection raised by the petitioner, a senior advocate identified only as Mr G, concerned the alleged ultra vires nature of the Tribunal proceedings on the ground that there was no proper order of appointment. The petitioner explained that, at an early stage, he had applied to both the Registrar and the Prothonotary seeking a copy of the order issued by the Chief Justice that constituted the Tribunal. The Prothonotary replied that the order had been made orally and that no written document existed.

Mr G then submitted two written statements to the Tribunal but did not dispute the factual statement that the order was oral in either of those submissions. Instead, he limited his challenge to the contention that the order was not “judicial” and therefore lacked validity. He pursued the same line of argument before the High Court. The judges of the High Court observed that the record clearly showed that, when the matter came before their Court, it had been decided to refer the case to the Bar Council under section 10(2) of the Bar Councils Act and that, consequently, a Tribunal had been appointed under section 11(1) by the learned Chief Justice of that Court.

In the petition presented to this Court, the petitioner again refrained from challenging the factual statement regarding the oral nature of the order and confined his attack solely to the question of the order’s validity. The Court found that the petitioner had never contested the fact that the order had been made orally, and it held that allowing the petitioner to relitigate that unchallenged fact would be impermissible.

The next issue considered by the Court was whether an oral order could satisfy the requirements of the Bar Councils Act. The Act, the Court observed, did not prescribe any specific procedure for making such an order. Section 10(2) merely provides that the High Court, of its own motion, may refer any case in which it has reason to believe that an advocate has been guilty of misconduct. Section 11(2) provides that the Tribunal shall consist of at least three members of the Bar Council appointed by the Chief Justice for the purpose of the inquiry.

The Court agreed that some record of the order should be placed in the files, but it held that the order itself need not be in writing; an oral order communicated to a proper officer of the Court was sufficient. In the present case, the Court noted that a letter identified as No G‑1003, dated …

In this case, the Court observed that the letter dated 29 April 1953 from the Prothonotary to the Registrar, together with the letter No. E 41‑09/53 dated 1 May 1953 from the Registrar to the Bar Council, were retained as office copies in the file and together constituted a satisfactory record of the order. These two letters were held to be a sufficient record of the making of the order in question. The petitioner, identified as Mr G, received copies of both letters and therefore knew that the order had been issued. The Court further stated that it had examined the original High Court office files and found that the names of the three members of the Tribunal were written in the Chief Justice’s handwriting, with his initials placed beneath the entries. That handwritten notation was considered an additional record confirming the issuance of the order. Consequently, the Court held that an order recorded in the manner described above satisfied the requirements of section 10(2) and section 11(2) of the Bar Councils Act. Accordingly, the Tribunal was found to have been validly appointed. Mr G then contended that no formal “complaint” had been filed before the High Court, and therefore the Court lacked jurisdiction to refer the matter to the Tribunal. The Court rejected that contention, noting that section 10(2) expressly authorises the High Court to refer a matter of this nature of its own motion, without a prior complaint. The merits of the case had already been addressed in the connected proceedings, which the Court acknowledged. Having considered the procedural and substantive issues, the Court dismissed the petition. The dismissal was made without any order as to costs. Thus the petition was finally dismissed.