In Re: Pandit Girindra Mohan Mishra

Courtney-Terrell, C.J.—This is an application by one Pandit Girindra Mohan Mishra who is said to be the Manager of the Darbhanga estate, a very important and wealthy estate in this province, for permission that he may be represented by a very eminent advocate of the Bombay High Court in certain proceedings pending before this Court in which he is said to be charged with the offence of contempt of Court. The Rule made under the Bar Councils Act governing the appearance in this High Court of advocates of another High Court is almost identical with the following rule of the Bombay High Court:

An Advocate of any other High Court in British India whose name is not entered on the Roll of Advocates of this High Court, may with the permission of the Honourable the Chief Justice appear and plead in any particular case or cases in this High Court on the Appellate Side provided an Advocate of this High Court is also instructed to appear with such first mentioned Advocate save as aforesaid no such Advocate shall practise in this High Court on the Appellate Side.

As I understand this Rule the provision that the appearance of stranger Advocates is not permitted save with the permission of the Chief Justice means that the Chief Justice is to use judicial discretion, that is to say good reason must be shown for the exercise of the discretion and that the permission is not to be granted on mere application. It has pleased the legislature to provide that each province shall have its own High Court with its own Bar and that the right of Advocate of any particular Bar to appear in other High Courts does not exist as a matter of right. Much the same institution prevails at the Bar in England where the different circuits have each their own Bar, although the appearance of a stranger Barrister on a circuit of which he is not a member is there possible if the advocate is paid a special fee to secure his presence and that fee is a public matter known to everybody. In other words in both countries the principle seems to be the same that the policy is that within a given jurisdiction a local Bar shall normally carry on the legal practice before the Court in question. As to the wisdom of this policy I am not called upon to pronounce any opinion. Had the legislature thought it advisable that an advocate of any Court in India should be entitled as of right to appear in a stranger Court, the legislature could easily have made such provision, but the fact that the legislature has specifically provided that the permission of the Chief Justice is indispensable and as it cannot be pretended that the permission of the Chief Justice must of necessity be granted as a matter of course on an application, I deem it my duty to apply my mind to the circumstances of the application and to see whether good reasons have been shown in any particular case.

In many cases which have come before me such reasons have been shown. Sometimes the reason is that the advocate for whom permission is sought to appear has from the very beginning in the lower Court made a complete study of the case and is familiar with its details. That is one class of reason which may be successfully presented, or it may appear that the litigant has his normal residence and carries on his normal business in another province and habitually consults a lawyer of that other province who is familiar with his business; and in such circumstances again it is reasonable that the advocate should appear in this Court. A [third circumstance may be the great magnitude of a case, the fact that it raises some extremely new and important question of principle and of the jurisdiction of the Court in which case again it may be right and proper that one of the more distinguished advocates in India should be admitted to argue the case. As an illustration of the last class of case may be cited one of contempt of Court proceedings against a certain newspaper which came before me some years ago. In those proceedings a very important question of jurisdiction was raised which necessitated the hearing of the case by a Special Bench of five Judges and justified me in granting permission to three distinguished gentlemen from other Bars.

I now turn to what are alleged to be the special circumstances of the particular case in point. On the first occasion on which this application was made it was presented by one of the learned advocates of this Court of whom there were not less than four who had been up to that time instructed on behalf of the litigant. All of those gentlemen were thoroughly qualified and, if I may be permitted to say, very well selected from the ranks of the Bar available in this Court. The proceedings which are pending, in so far as they have been presented before me do not seem to raise any novel and important point of jurisdiction. Indeed the reasons which are now presented have been summarised in a fresh petition in the following form: "(a) The position of the accused as the acting Chief Manager of the Darbhanga estate." That is no good reason at all. To concede that the mere personality of the applicant was a special reason would lead to manifest injustice: "(b) The nature of the proceeding." There have been plenty of contempt of Court proceedings before this Court, and I do not think that the Bench is under the need of special assistance which is not within the competence of the present members of the Bar which is available in this province; "(c) The stigma that is likely to be cast upon him and consequently upon the Darbhanga estate itself in case the accused is convicted."

I have not yet been informed of the precise nature of the contempt alleged, but in the proceedings which seem to have been taken against this individual, who is the applicant before me, the merits of the case which will have to be discussed will necessarily be his own merits in relation to those proceedings. The fact that he is in an important and distinguished employ seems to me to be of no importance whatever. It does not add to the difficulty of the decision which may be required, nor to the matter of the discussion which will take place in the proceedings. As to the stigma which is to be cast upon him, the stigma is no greater and no less than what would necessarily follow in the case of any responsible person found guilty of contempt of Court, and to say that the mere fact that the proceedings are in respect of contempt carries the case no further. Lastly there is put the natural anxiety in the circumstances on the part of the accused to be defended by an advocate of eminent position of all India reputation.

No doubt every litigant desires the best legal advice that his purse enables him to obtain. I feel perfectly confident that the Bar which is available here is quite competent to deal with any such matters as may arise, they not being of any special or novel character so far as I am at present aware. I must now refer to a letter, which has been exhibited to this petition, from the eminent advocate in question, to one of the learned gentlemen already instructed in the case. This letter clearly indicates that he is under an entire misapprehension as to the reasons which guided me in the first instance to refuse the application. There is no question of reciprocity involved in this matter at all. It must be freely conceded that the Chief Justice of the Bombay High Court will apply precisely the same principles, and there is no question here of discrimination against the Bar of a Court on the ground that our Bar does not receive reciprocal treatment from that Court. I think it very necessary that this point should be drawn to the attention of this learned gentleman because possibly the Chief Justice of the Bombay High Court, if the matter should be called to his attention, may be under a similar misapprehension. There is no question of reciprocity involved and I hope and expect that in cases which may come before the Bombay High Court of a similar nature the same principles which I have been at pains to explain will be applied in the Bombay High Court and that if a similar application should be made before the Chief Justice there with similar lack of reasonable support that he also would refuse the application. The application is therefore rejected.