In re Ch. Ram Singh

Ch. Ram Singh having been duly enrolled as a Pleader started practising somewhere in 1948 at Jind. In the month of Jan. 1951 he was elected a member of the local legislative assembly and as he was later included in the Council of Ministers of Patiala & East Punjab States Union, the operation of his licence was suspended by the order of the High Court dated 2-5-1952. On 12-3-1953 Ch. Ram Singh applied for the restoration of his licence because he had ceased to be a Minister & wanted to resume practice at the bar. Before any order could be passed on Ch. Ram Singh's application, it was brought to my notice that not only the election of Ch. Ram Singh as a member of the legislative assembly of the State had been set aside but he had been disqualified for being a member of Parliament or Legislature of any State for a period of six years because he was guilty of major corrupt practices.

As a perusal of the order of the Election Tribunal which was published in the Gazette of India Extraordinary Part II Section 3 dated 21st Feb. 1953 (pages 477 to 491) showed that the Tribunal had held that he had inter alia made false statement and further that he did not act in an honest, straightforward and upright manner, the Chief Justice ordered a notice to issue to him to show cause why he should not be dismissed and debarred from practising as a pleader. The formal charge framed against Ch. Ram Singh is appendix "A" of this order. After Ch. Ram Singh had submitted his written reply the enquiry into the matter was entrusted to the Bench.

The enquiry is under S. 13, Legal practitioners Act which lays down that High Court may after such enquiry as it thinks fit suspend or dismiss any pleader or mukhtar holding a certificate who is adjudged guilty of any of the acts enumerated in cls. (a) to (e) of the Section or for any other reasonable cause under cl. (f) of the Section. The words of cl. (f) are very wide. It was once held by the Calcutta High Court that the clause must be read ejusdem generis with the preceding clauses, but a different view was taken by the Madras High Court in - "In the matter of A.G. Ganapathi Sastri & T.V. Krishnaswami Iyer", 19 MLR 504 (A) and since then almost all the High Courts in India have expressed the view that the words "for another sufficient cause" are not limited to misconduct of a strictly professional character and that the operation of cl. (f) S. 13 is not confined to misconduct of which a practitioner may be found guilty in his professional capacity but embrace all cases which may afford reasonable grounds for a suspension or dismissal.

Reference in this connection may be made among others to - "In the matter of Rasik Lal Nag", AIR 1917 Cal 428 (B) and - "Crown v. Jatindra Mohan", AIR 1950 Dacca 3 (C). The same view was expressed by their Lordships of the Privy Council in - "Shankar Ganesh v. Secy. of State", AIR 1922 PC 351 (D). - ''In Re AIR 1929 803 (Lahore) , a lawyer was suspended for three months because he had made one statement before the police in the course of an investigation of an offence and made a diametrically opposite statement in the witness-box when the case went to Court.

In fairness to the respondent it may be mentioned that he did not raise any technical objection to these proceedings. His defence was that no action against him could be taken on the basis of the order of the Election Tribunal and their findings because (a) they were vauge and indefinite and (b) they were far-fetched and were not supported by any evidence on record.

Various, allegations were made against the respondent in the election petition, but in this enquiry we are concerned only with those that were the subject-matter of issues Nos. 1 and 2, framed by the Commission. The issues are :

(a) Did respondent 1 employ Khanya Ram for remuneration to do canvassing in support of his party and not in support of his personal candidature? Was this expenditure illegal under S. 123(7), Representation of the People Act?

(b) Does his employment amount to a major corrupt practice under that section?

(a) Does petitioner prove that respondent 1 obtained or procured assistance of Ch. Mehtab Singh of Igra for furtherance of the prospects of his election?

(b) Should Ch. Mehtab Singh, as a member of Debt Conciliation Board, be deemed to have been in service of the Pepsu Government?

(c) Does the employment of Mehtab Singh of Igra as above, if proved, amount to a corrupt practice under S. 123(8), Representation of the People Act?

As regards issue No. 1 the allegation was that the respondent had employed one Khanya Ram as a paid servant on a remuneration of Rs. 400/- to do propaganda and canvass support for his candidature. The respondent's reply was that the allegation was false and frivolous, that Khanya Ram was never employed by him and that he was a singer and had ceased to work long before the polling began. The other side produced a voucher bearing number 11 which purported to be a receipt for Rs. 400/- given by one Lehna Singh Doon. The following were the words of the voucher:

Received Rs. 400/- from Ch. Ram Singh B. A. LL.B. candidate for the Pepsu Legislative Assembly for carrying on election propaganda and paid to Ch. Kanhya Ram Lecturer of village Lajwana Khurd Teh. Jind as remuneration for the month of December, 1951.

The position of the other side was that this voucher was in the handwriting of Ch. Ram Singh himself and definitely showed that he had paid the amount to Kanhya Ram to canvass support for him. They put a definite question to the respondent on this point in the interrogatories. This is how question No. 4 reads:

Is it true that you entered in your election expenses return that this payment of Rs. 400/-owas made by you to Ch. Kanihya Ram of Lajwana Khurd through Shri Lehna Singh Doon for the month of December, 51 as remuneration for carrying on election propaganda during your election campaign?" The respondent's answer was "It was paid by Ch. Lehna Singh for the work of the party i.e., "Kishan Party" and in turn I paid to him. It is payment of work done long before elections, though it was paid in December, 1951.

Lehna Singh when examined as a witness stated that the scribe of the voucher was one Dhoop Singh. The latter was not put in the witness-box. The respondent denied that the voucher was written by him. The Tribunal held that the respondent's statement was false and in coming to this conclusion they mainly relied upon the opinion of one K.S. Puri who claimed to be a handwriting expert. To contradict the opinion of K.S. Puri the respondent examined one S. S. Pahwa who also claimed to be a handwriting expert and deposed that the voucher in question was not in the respondent's handwriting. The Tribunal held that Pahwa's opinion could not be accepted. They further held that Kanihya Ram's employment by the respondent and the payment made to him amounted to a corrupt practice under cl. 7 of S. 123, Representation of the People Act.

As regards issue No. 2 the allegation of the other side which is contained in appendix B of the election petition (page 13 of the record of the election petition) reads as follows:

Ch. Ram Singh respondent No. 1 appointed Ch. Mehtab Singh of village Igra, Tehsil Jind his polling agent at Bibipur polling station and (he) Ch. Mehtab Singh, worked as such at the said station on 7th and 8th Jan. 1952, Ch. Mehtab Singh was a member of the Pepsu Debt Conciliation Board on the said dates and drew Rs. 100/- monthly as his pay from Pepsu Government; vide Govt. Gazette No. 9 Vol. 3 dated 21st May, 1950, Revenue Department notification No. 12 dated 11-5-50.

The respondents reply was that the allegation was false and frivolous. He also stated that

no such gentleman of the name of Ch. Mehtab Singh was ever appointed as my polling agent.

The evidence produced by the other side included 9 forms relating to appointments of polling agents P. 11 to P. 19. Of these P. 11 and P. 12 purport to relate to the appointment of one Mehtab Singh as polling agent for Julana constituency and the polling stations of Bibi Pur and Kherm respectively. All the forms purported to bear the signature of the respondent. The respondent was questioned about his signatures and he admitted that P. 11 and P. 12 were signed by him but not P. 14. As regards P. 11 and P. 12 his explanation was that Mehtab Singh to whose appointment they related was not Mehtab Singh of Igra mentioned in the petition but another Mehtab Singh of village Sundarpura. The Tribunal rejected the respondent's explanation and held that it was Mehtab Singh of Igra who was appointed by him as polling agent and the appointment amounted to a corrupt practice.

The learned Advocate-General contended that because the respondent has been found guilty of mal-practices his licence should be cancelled and he should be debarred from practising as a pleader. In support of his contention he cited paragraphs 900 and 1016 of Volume XII of Halsbury's Laws of England. Paragraph 900 says:

Where a barrister, or a solicitor, or a person belonging to any profession the admission to which is regulated by law, is reported by the election court to have been guilty of any corrupt practice in connection with an election, it is the duty of the Director of Public Prosecutions, whether such person has or has not received a certificate or indemnity, to bring the matter before the Inn of Court, High Court or Tribunal having power to take cognizance of any misconduct of such person in his profession, and such Inn of Court, High Court, or Tribunal may deal with such person in like manner as if such corrupt practice were misconduct by such person in his profession.

The words of Paragraph 1016 are:

If a justice of the peace, a barrister, a solicitor, or a person belonging to any profession the admission to which is regulated by law is reported by the election court to have been guilty of any corrupt practice, or if a licensed person is reported to have knowingly suffered any bribery or treating in relation to any election to take place upon his licensed premises, the provision consequential upon such report are the same as those consequential upon such report by a Court trying a parliamentary election petition.

When the attention of the Advocate-General was drawn to the fact that both these paragraphs were based upon a statutory provision of English Law, i.e., Corrupt and Illegal Practice Prevention Act, 1883 and no such law existed here in India, he gave up his contention and took up the position that findings of the Tribunal that the respondent was guilty of corrupt practices and the observations that they were made with regard to his veracity and truth etc., made out a prima facie case against him that he was unfit to remain a member of the honourable profession of law. The first ruling cited by the learned Advocate General in this connection is Pull Bench decision of the Madras High Court, - "Muni Reddi v. K. Venkata Rao", AIR 1914 Mad 512 (F). It was held in that case that the judgment in a civil suit between the pleader and his client, relating to the subject-matter of enquiry against the pleader under the Legal Practitioners Act, is admissible in the latter inquiry to establish at least a prima facie case against the pleader. In my opinion this ruling has no applicability in this case, for the simple reason that the judgment of a civil court which is subject to appeal or it may be a second appeal and then a revision to the High Court, stands on a different footing from the decision of an election Tribunal which is final and from which no appeal or revision lies to any Court. Secondly the learned Judges of the Madras High Court made it clear that the judgment of a civil Court will establish prima facie case against the pleader only when the matter to which the civil suit related was identical with the Subject-matter of the enquiry under the Legal Practitioners Act and this condition is not satisfied in the present case.

The only questions before the Tribunal so far as issues Nos. 1 and 2 were concerned were whether the respondent had engaged a professional preacher to canvass for him and whether he had utilized the service of a person who was in the employment of the State. It is true that in coming to a decision on these points, the Tribunal made certain observations about the veracity of the respondent, but this question arose only incidentally and in the Madras case the learned Judges observed that the principle enunciated by them would not apply in a case of this kind. This is what they said:

The principle would of course not apply where the conduct of the pleader was not the direct issue in the Court which found him guilty of misconduct, but only arose incidentally in a litigation between other parties. Such was the case in - "In re Lubcek, an Advocate", 33 Cal 151 (PC) (G)."

The other cases cited by the learned Advocate-General are - ''In re S. Pleader's conduct (E)'', referred to in the earlier part of this order and - ''In the matter of In Re: B, an Advocate In the Lahore case the learned Judges did not rely upon any decision of a Court or tribunal but themselves came to the conclusion on the basis of the material placed before them that the pleader had made diametrically opposite statements and was hence guilty of grossest misconduct. The Allahabad case is more or less on the same lines as the Madras Full Bench case just mentioned, and it was held therein that judgment and evidence given in the civil suit filed by a party against the pleader is admissible as evidence in an inquiry, against the pleader under the Legal Practitioners Act. It may however be mentioned that while laying down the above rule the learned Judges sounded a note of caution that such judgment and evidence are not conclusive proof in the inquiry under the Legal Practitioners Act.

Now even if we treat the order of the Tribunal as the judgment of a proper civil or criminal Court, we can only use it as evidence to prove that he was found guilty of corrupt practices during the election and the learned Advocate-General admitted that this fact by itself cannot be a ground for taking any action against him in these proceedings. What the learned Advocate General stressed was that since the Tribunal has held in so many words that the respondent made false suggestions, that he suppressed true facts, that the love of truth was not a strong point in his mental make up and that he had no scruples in making false and contradictory statements etc. he cannot be permitted to practise as a pleader. As we have already pointed out the veracity of the respondent was not directly in issue before the Tribunal and consequently what they found in this connection cannot be used against him.

Then there is another important matter that cannot be ignored. At the respondents'' request we scrutinised the evidence on which the Tribunal based their observations and on going through it carefully we have formed the opinion that the respondent's contention that the said observations were vague and indefinite and they were not based upon proper evidence, is not wholly devoid of force. To start with, the Tribunal appear to be of the view that the statements that the respondent and his counsel made from time to time and the answers that they gave to the petitioner's allegation about the appointment of Kanihya Ram and Mehtab Singh, were contradictory. In our opinion this finding is not absolutely correct. While dealing with the facts relating to issue No. 1 we showed that the respondent first characterised the petitioner's allegations on the point as false and frivolous and when confronted with the voucher said to have been written by Lahna Singh Doon, he stated that the amount mentioned in the voucher was paid to Lehna Singh for the work of the party and not for canvassing votes or doing propaganda work for the respondent.

We agree that the respondent would have been well advised in making the statements more detailed and even precise but we cannot agree that they were contradictory. The same is the case with regard to the statements made by the respondent about the, alleged appointment of Ch. Mehtab Singh as polling agent at Bibipur. The learned Advocate-General argued that the respondent's first answer that "no such gentleman of the name of Ch. Mehtab Singh was ever appointed as my polling agent" was contradicted by his subsequent statement that Mehtab Singh whose name was mentioned in Exhibits P. 11 and P. 12 was a different person from Mehtab Singh of Igra. The argument does not appeal to us because the words "such gentleman" mean the gentleman referred to in the election petition, i.e., Mehtab Singh of village Igra and when the respondent denied the appointment of "such gentleman" he evidently meant that he never appointed Mehtab Singh of Igra as his polling agent.

We have also read with care the reasons given by the learned members of the Tribunal for their view that the respondent's statements in so far as they related to voucher No. 11 and Exhibits P. 11 and P. 12 were contradictory and false, but with all deference we are not convinced by them. In any case we cannot hold that they can justly be used for taking any action against the respondent under the Legal Practitioners Act, .......... As regards the voucher as we observed before, the main evidence against the respondent was that of a handwriting, expert. Apart from the fact that the respondent also put in the witness-box an expert witness and he contradicted the evidence of the expert of the other side, it is now well recognised that no one can be condemned as a liar or forger merely on the strength of a handwriting expert.

As regards Exhibits P. 11 and P. 12 the Tribunal ignored the fact that they admittedly came from the possession of Indar Singh who was an enemy of the respondent and it could not, therefore, be said with certainty that all the entries that they contained were genuine. Much depended upon the genuineness of Mehtab Singh's signatures in the said two forms. The other side contended that they were in the handwriting of the respondent. This fact was denied by the respondent and again it was because of the evidence of the handwriting expert produced by the other side that the Tribunal found against the respondent. Another fact that the Tribunal used against the respondent was that the written authority by which Mehtab Singh was appointed polling agent by the respondent was not forthcoming.

The impression that we formed by reading the Tribunal's order is that they believed that it was removed by the respondent when he inspected the record or by someone else for his benefit and under his influence during the time he was a Minister. The record, however, shows and. this fact has been mentioned in para 19 of the Tribunal's order that the authority in question, even if it had once existed, was not traceable on record on 1-4-1952 when the petitioner applied for its copy. Since both sides are agreed that the respondent became Minister in May, 1952 the conclusion that he took advantage of his office in removing the authority or having it removed from the record, is obviously erroneous.

It was then argued by the learned Advocate-General that we should weigh the entire evidence produced in the course of the election proceedings for ourselves and decide whether the respondent's statements were false and whether his conduct was as reprehensible as was held by the Tribunal. But we refuse to do this because the learned Advocate-General was not able to convince us that we could base our decision in these proceedings on the evidence produced before the Tribunal.

Last of all, the learned Advocate-General prayed that he be allowed to substantiate the findings of the Tribunal in so far as they relate to the respondent's veracity etc. This would be going entirely outside the scope of the charge against the respondent and will amount to the reopening of the whole case which we cannot allow.

In the result we hold that the charge against the respondent is not proved and accordingly discharge the notice issued to him.