P L D 1957 Supreme Court (Pak (PLP)

CORNELIUS, J.‑

The appellant Ch. Muhammad Hassan is an Advocate of the High Court of West Pakistan. By this appeal he brings before the Court an order pronounced against him by a Bench of three learned Judges of that Court, purport ing to act under clause 8 of the Letters Patent of the Court, whereby he has been suspended from his professional practice for a period of three months. (Upon the admission of the present appeal, the operation of that order was suspended by a direction of this Court). It was held by two of the three learned Judges who composed the Bench that Ch. Muhammad Hassan had been guilty of issuing a "threat of exposure" to a public servant in circumstances which rendered such conduct unworthy of a lawyer. The third member of the Bench was of the opinion that such conduct of the Advocate as had been "' established in the case did not call for the exercise of the Court's jurisdiction, but even if it could qualify for the description of misconduct, there was no case at all for making an order of suspension from practice, and a warning would be amply sufficient. The complaint against the Advocate was made by Sh. Muhammad Iqbal, Deputy Secretary to the Government of the Punjab in the Rehabilitation Department, by means of a letter, dated the 23rd of July 1355. The letter stated that on that day, the writer had been visited in his office by "one Ch. Muhammad Hassan, Advocate who is reported to be ex‑M.L.A. of Ludhiana". The visitor said he wished to speak on behalf of a refugee, and being permitted to do so, he said that the man who was running a cycle stand attached to the Rehabi litation Commissioner's office had been appointed at his (i.e., Ch. Muhammad Hassan's) recommendation, and he had heard that Sh. Muhammad Iqbal was going to appoint another man "to share the management of the stand". Sh. Muhammad Iqbal asked in what way his visitor "was interested in the local affairs of the office" and received the reply that his interest in the man who was running the cycle stand arose from the circumstance that he himself was responsible for putting him there whereupon Sh. Muhammad Iqbal told him that it was "not the business of a lawyer to interfere in the office manage ment particularly when no arrangements have yet been made". It was then that the alleged threat of exposure was held out, and it is desirable that this should be set out in the very words of the letter. These are as follows:‑ "He said he must interfere and if I did not agree will he expose me because he knew I was getting work out of the man who was being appointed. 1 told him that he might say what he liked but it was highly objectionable. Thereupon he threatend me with the consequences of exposure." The letter continues with an expression of the writer's opinion that it was no part of a lawyer's business to approach Govern ment servants with such requests and to utter threats if they did not agree. He desired that the Court might take such action as was necessary. Upon being asked for an explanation, the Advocate admitted that he had interviewed the Deputy Secretary to recommend the case of the cycle contractor Fazal Din. The reason was that he had been informed that the Deputy Secre tary "intended to add as a partner his own peon or a relative of his peon with the said Fazal Din". Fazal Din had been appointed cycle contractor by the Rehabilitation Commissioner upon the recommendation of Ch. Muhammad Hassan. The purpose of his visit was to request the Deputy Secretary to allow Fazal Din to remain as the sole cycle contractor and, while denying the allegation of threats of exposure, the Advocate stated that in view of his purpose, there was no point in his threatening Sh. Muhammad Iqbal. He went on to say that he bad once, as a counsel, "had the honour" to prosecute Sh. Muhammad Iqbal when he was Secretary of the Improvement Trust, Lahore under section 406/420, P. P. C., and suggested that the complaint may have been inspired by a grievance on that account. The conduct attributed to him was not in discharge of professional duties as a lawyer, nor connected with any matter incidental to such duties but "as a public man it was my duty to have come to the rescue of a poor refugee which I did". A charge of professional misconduct was framed by the Advocate‑General under the directions of a Division Bench of the High Court. It set out that the Advocate upon being told when he recommended the aforesaid Fazal Din, that it was not his business to interfere in the office management, intimidated Sh. Muhammad Iqbal "by telling him that you would expose him and he shall have to face the consequences of exposure". This was described as "professional misconduct" and the Advocate was asked to show cause why he should not be sus pended or removed from practice. Evidence was led before the Full Bench, consisting of oral statements by the complainant Sh. Muhammad Iqbal and by Ch. Muhammad Hassan. Documentary evidence relating to the case of criminal misappropriation and cheating to which the Advocate had referred in his written reply to the com plaint, was also led. Sh. Muhammad Iqbal was cross examined at some length about this case. When he was shown the original complaint procured from the Court which had dealt with it, he still said he could not admit that this complaint had been made until he was shown the copy which had been sent to him. He denied knowledge of the face that Ch. Muhammad Hassan had acted as counsel for the complai nant in that case. The observations in the majority judgment regarding this part of the evidence are significant and are reproduced below: "Sheikh Muhammad Iqbal took some time in admitting the contents of the criminal complaint and the fact that Chaudhri Muhammad Hassan's figuring as counsel must have come to his notice. It was not a laudable effort to keep back a circumstance that should have been evident. It may be reasonably inferred that he did not like Chaudhri Muhammad Hassan's habit of "drafting complaints against big personalities". That is the quality which Chaudhri Muhammad Hassan ascribed to himself in his statement before us. Chaudhri Muhammad Hassan's visit may not, therefore, have been welcome." On this point, the opinion of the third member of the Bench is as follows:-- "I am convinced that Sh. Muhammad Iqbal did know that the respondent had appeared as a counsel in the only criminal complaint filed against him, that he bore him ill‑will on that account and that he has suppressed some of the truth and distorted certain facts both ‑in his complaint to the Registrar and in his statement before us." As will be seen presently the disparity between that which is alleged by the complainant and the facts which are admitted by the Advocate is by no means great. It might even be regarded as a matter of putting a gloss upon words. If then, it be thought that in some measure however slight, Sh. Muhammad Iqbal "bore ill‑will" towards the Advocate on account of some thing which had happened before ever the interview took place, out of which the present case arose, it would become necessary in assessing the evidence given by the complainant to bear in mind that it might have been natural for him to take offence at anything said or done by Ch. Muhammad Hassan, which had the flavour of a complaint against him. Sh. Muhammad Iqbal made the following statement in the course of his evidence: "Ch. Muhammad Hassan did say that he will "expose" me. I did not understand what he meant when he said that he would expose me. It is possible that Ch. Muhammad Hassan may have meant that he would complain to the higher authorities concerned that the proposed appointment by me was irregular. Q.‑You have said in your letter that Ch. Muhammad Hassan told you that if you did not agree he would expose you "because he knew I was getting work out of the man who was being appointed". Did you not understand him to mean that if you did not agree with him he would tell your superior authorities that you were getting work out of the new man who was being appointed? A.‑That is correct. Q.‑Do you agree that if in fact you were getting work out of any such man, it would be contrary to the Govern ment Servants' Conduct Rules? A.‑Yes it would be". At this point, it is necessary to mention that the dissenting member of the Full Bench has made the following observation in his judgment:‑ "As mentioned by Kayani, J., the respondent stated before us that if the allegations of Sheikh Muhammad Iqbal are found to be true, he may be held to be guilty of misconduct. On the other hand if I remember a right the learned Advocate‑General stated at the very outset that Sheikh Muhammad Iqbal did not wish to pursue the matter and would prefer to drop it." A very good reason for wishing not to pursue the matter might be that an officer is not entitled to represent himself as being subjected to a threat of exposure, when a person declares before him that he proposes to refer a matter of which such officer is seized, to his own superior authorities, because he is not satisfied that the officer is going to deal with the matter in a proper way. Such a course must be open to every member of the public, if the provision of graded authorities in the administration is to be utilised for its proper purpose, namely, to ensure that action taken by these authorities is appropriate in the eye of law and justice and in accordance with administrative and public policy. All officers in their respective positions may be presumed to be aware of this incident applicable to the discharge of their functions. A particular officer who, on being reminded of this incident attaching to his office, immediately complains of it as an unauthorised threat of exposure cannot be thought to act in the normal way of one who is engaged in discharging his duties towards persons coming within his jurisdiction, without fear or favour. There fore, it is impossible to deny that the earlier complaint filed by Ch. Muhammad Hassan as an Advocate against Sit. Muhammad Iqbal, did operate upon the latter's mind in relation not only to the making of the complaint, but also to the evidence which he gave on the point in the High Court. It may easily have induced an attitude in which a statement of intention to have recourse to higher authorities was received by Sh. Muhammad Iqbal as a personal attack upon himself, amounting to a threat of exposure. There is in the majority judgment, another statement which brings out very clearly the fact that Sh. Muhammad Iqbal's attitude in regard to the complaint, was not that of a disinter ested officer who had suffered unjustifiable interference in the discharge of his functions. The following extract from that judgment contains in graphic terms the final conclusion of the learned Judges as to what, in their opinion, passed in the minds of the two principal actors:‑-- "The question in such cases, it seems to me, ought to be whether the conduct alleged is worthy of a lawyer and I am very clear that a threat of exposure to a public servant is conduct unworthy of a lawyer. I mean a conditional threat, because I should welcome a lawyer who exposes a dishonest public servant. Now this Fazal Din who holds the cycle contract is related to Chaudhri Muhammad Hassan's munshi and what Chaudhri Muhammad Hassan does amounts to this "If you appoint another to share my munshi's relative's three rupees a day, I am going to tell your superiors that the other man is your peon's relative and that you are going to make use of him. But if you just let things go on, then you can make any use of your peon or his relative's relative, and my championship of public causes in so far as they do not clash with my munhsi's relative can for the time being enjoy a well earned rest." And Sheikh Muhammad Iqbal says : "Since you put it that way, I have no intention of doing anything, but on second thought", when Chaudhri Muhammad Hassan leaves the office, triumphant, "I shall writs to the High Court." We find ourselves unable, with respect, to agree with the representation of the Advocate's state of mind and his purpose, contained in the above extract. Fazal Din, it appears is related to the Advocate's munshi. A pleader's munshi, in Lahore, usually receives his remuneration directly from the clients. The relationship between an Advocate and his munshi is of a professional rather than a personal nature, and correspondingly the degree of interest between the two need not be placed at any very high level. It may be that the interest which Ch. Muhammad Hassan showed in Fazal Din was inspired to some extent by his connection with the munshi, but the fact that Fazal Din was a refugee is not denied, and it has been stated before us that Ch. Muhammad Hassan who is himself a refugee, has been greatly interesting himself, in a public capacity, in the affairs of stricken refugees. It was stated in the course of arguments that he was an M. L. A. in the old Punjab, and was even Leader of the Opposition in the Punjab Legislative Assembly. In his written reply to the High Court he declared that his intervention on behalf of Fazal Din was regarded by him to be his duty "as a public man". Such a case as that of Fazal Din would the more readily come to his notice on account of the relationship between Fazal Din and his own munshi. Consequently, it is hardly fair to Ch. Muhammad Hassan to suggest that he was intervening on behalf of Fazal Din through motives of self‑interest. On the other hand, the imputation against Sh. Muhammad Iqbal was clearly one of self‑interest, namely, that he was providing remuneration out of public sources to a certain person who was doing private work for him, by giving him a share out of Fazal Din's meagre income from the office cycle stand. To place Ch. Muhammad Hassan's interest in Fazal Din on a par with the alleged interest of the Deputy Secretary in his peon's relatives, is therefore not possible. Consequently much of the force is taken away from the conclusion of the learned Judges that Ch. Muhammad Hassan bad issued a "conditional threat" to Sh. Muhammad Iqbal, for the "condition" in the nature of a bargain, did not in fact exist. Moreover, the extract from the judgment quoted above seems to indicate quite clearly that in the opinion of the learned Judges Sh. Muhammad Iqbal's own attitude was not free from motive of self‑interest and even some measure of malice. The words put into his mouth convey the impression that he agreed at first to desist from all action, because of the manner in which Ch. Muhammad Hassan had brought up the matter. On second thoughts however, a course of action struck Sh. Muhammad Iqbal, namely, that he would complain of undue interference against Ch. Muhammad Hassan, and thus take some of the shine off his triumph. It is not necessary to seek for words to depict the precise nature of the conduct thus imputed to Sh. Muhammad Iqbal in the field of human relations, but it certainly is not conduct such as one would expect from a disinterested Government servant dealing equally and fairly with subjects within his juris diction. Other grounds have already been stated which seems to establish the need of caution in accepting Sh. Muhammad Iqbal's evidence as to the words used and the intentions expressed by Ch. Muhammad Hassan. The majority judgment resolves the gap between the admissions of the latter and the accusation of the former, in the following manner:‑-- "We have a definite admission by the respondent, however, that he said to Sheikh Muhammad Iqbal, "My Information is, that you amend to add as a partner your own peon or a relative of your peon to the said Fazal Din", and in Court he added that he had told Sheikh Muhammad Iqbal this would be good neither to Fazal Din nor to Sheikh Muhammad Iqbal because it was objectionable conduct. I am, therefore, quite prepared to believe that he put this in the form of a threat of exposure, as Sheikh Muhammad Iqbal contends and the reason why I believe it is that while Sheikh Muhammad Iqbal alleges it definitely Chaudhri Muhammad Hassan says, not that it happened differently, but that there was no occasion for it." Grounds clearly exist to justify the belief that the terms of the accusation might have been aggravated, beyond the force of the expressions actually employed by Ch. Muhammad Hassan. Those expressions were admittedly understood by Sheikh Muhammad Iqbal as a declaration of intention to pursue the matter with his superior officers, a perfectly permissible and proper proceeding. Therefore, the resolution of the gap in the complainant's favour in the manner appearing from the above extract, would not appear to be in consonance with the circumstances of the incident and the complaint, as they appear from the record. On this view of the matter, there would appear to be no' act of professional misconduct established against the appellant and the appeal should succeed. It can also, in our opinion, succeed on the alternative ground that Ch. Muhammad Hassan, when he was in the respondents' office, was not acting as a lawyer or in any manner incidental to the functions of a lawyer. It is perfectly clear that he acted in the capacity of a public C man. It is true that certain types of gross misbehaviour by an Advocate, although unconnected with .his professional work or life, may serve to found an order of removal or suspension. F As was said by Lord Westbury in the Privy Council case "In re Wallace" (L R 1 P C App. Cas. 283 at 295) '.‑ "It must not, however, be supposed that a Court of Justice has not the power to remove the officers of the Court if unfit to be entrusted with a professional status and character. If an Advocate, for example, were found guilty of crime, there is no doubt that the Court would suspend him. If an Attorney be found guilty of moral delinquency in his private character, there is no doubt that he may be struck off the Roll." Mention may also be made of the principle enunciated in relation to solicitors in the case "In re, a Solicitor Ex parte the Law Society" ((1912) I K B 302) that "professional misconduct" includes E conduct which would reasonably be regarded as disgraceful or dishonourable by Solicitors of good repute and competency. As is appropriate in the case of a profession which enjoys a large measure of autonomy in the control of its members the emphasis is upon the view held of the conduct in question by the best opinion available within that body. Where control is exercised, as in the present case, by the Court, the accent should be placed rather upon the bearing which the alleged conduct has upon the general fitness of the Advocate to be associated with the Courts of the country, within his own sphere, in the administration and dispensation of justice. The warrant of fitness is furnished by the fact of his being enrolled as an Advocate, and this assurance to the general public by whom his services may be sought, can be withdrawn, either permanently or for a specified period, within the Court's punitive jurisdiction, if proof of conduct indicating absence of such fitness, is furnished. But, in the present case no hint of any dishonourable or disgraceful conduct appears, in relation to the Advocate's behaviour at any stage. The task, he undertook, namely of B supporting the complaint of a poor man to an officer who was alleged to be contemplating an official act of an oppressive p kind towards him, can only be regarded as laudable, and commended for its courage. It appears on the evidence to have been devoid of self‑interest. Nor can it be said of his declaration, when his request was met with resistance, that he would take the matter before superior authority, that there was anything improper about it, much less that it was dis graceful or dishonourable conduct. For these reasons, we allow this appeal, and set aside the order of suspension made against the appellant. The appellant will, however, bear his own costs of this appeal. A. H. Appeal allowed.