P L D 1964 Supreme Court 186 (PLP)

CORNELIUS, C. J.‑The appellant Abdul Hamid is a Head Constable attached to the City Police Station at Gujranwala. He has been held guilty of contempt of the High Court and sentenced to three months' simple imprisonment. The case arose out of an order in habeas corpus made by the High Court for the production of five persons who were alleged to be held in illegal detention by the Police of the City Police Station in Gujranwala. The order was entrusted to an official of the High Court by name Fazal Ahmad for execution on the 21st June 1963. He appeared with the detenues on the 23rd June and made a report to the effect that he went to Gujranwala on the 21st June, but could not find the detenues at the Police Station. The next morning the petitioner in the case took him to a well in the outskirts of Gujranwala where he found the five alleged detenues along with two others sitting under the guard of the appellant, namely, H. C. Abdul Hamid and three constables. He took them all to the Police Station in Civil Lines and after effecting service of the High Court order on A. S. I. Murad Ali Shah, he left the Police Station in the company of the detenues at 8 a.m. on the 22nd June. They were all on foot, and it seems that Fazal Ahmad was walking about a furlong ahead of the detenues. After they had gone a certain distance in this manner, Fazal Ahmad turned back to see that H. C. Abdul Hamid and some others had surrounded the detenues, beaten them with lathis and forcibly taken away some who had not been able to escape, in a truck belonging to the Municipal Committee. The report stated that at this time H. C. Abdul Hamid shouted out to the detenues "bring your bailiff for your help". Fazal Ahmad was helpless. He was unable to chase the truck, but went back to the Police Station Civil Lines and asked the Inspector to produce the detenues. Four of them were brought to Fazal Ahmad by the Sub‑Inspector incharge, by 3‑30 p.m. The remaining three persons were not to be found but on being told that they may have gone to their village Fateh Mand, Fazal Ahmad went there and found them. Accordingly, he brought all the seven to Lahore and produced them in Court the next morning. On the 24th June, a learned Single Judge directed issue of notice to H. C. Abdul Hamid to show cause why should he not be committed for contempt of Court. The notice set out the allegations of fact in the following terms :‑ "That you obstructed the bailiff to execute the orders of this Court, and also gave a severe beating to the detenues, and took few of them forcibly from the custody of the bailiff and carried them away in truck belonging to the Municipal Com mittee. This act of yours amounts to the contempt of this Court." This notice was issued on the 1st July 1963, and the response thereto was made, after a considerable interval, on the 30th November 1963, when a written apology was placed before the Court by the respondent H. C. Abdul Hamid in the following terms :‑ "(1) That the respondent most humbly and respectfully prays that he may be excused. He submits unconditional apology. (2) That he throws himself completely on the mercy of this Honourable Court. (3) That he neither intended nor had the least idea that he was committing any contempt of this Hon'ble Court. (4) That the respondent again most humbly and respectfully prays that he may be forgiven and has nothing to submit except to throw himself on the mercy of the Honourable Court." The terms of paragraph 3 of the apology clearly amount to admission of the allegations of fact contained in the notice. The learned Single Judge thought fit to receive evidence, and examined Fazal Ahmad as a witness. This was on the 4th December 1963, and it is to be stated with the greatest regret that Fazal Ahmad, who appears to occupy a responsible post in the staff of the High Court, seized the opportunity to confuse the case against H. C. Abdul Hamid by stating that the Police Officer who took away some of the detenues in a truck was "a Police Head Constable wearing his Police cap and his ribbons", but did not say that it was H. C. Abdul Hamid. When questioned on the point of identification, he said that the detenues had informed him that it was H. C. Abdul Hamid who bad taken them away, but he had not seen the beating himself and had only seen a Head Constable removing the detenues and could not say whether it was H. C. Abdul Hamid or some other Head Constable. These statements were so patently inconsistent with what he had said in his written report of the 23rd June that both statements could not possibly be true. Since H. C. Abdul Hamid in his apology had admitted the salient features set out in the notice which were based on Fazal Ahmad's report, the plain likelihood is that the statement made by Fazal Ahmad in Court on the 4th December is the less reliable of the two, and the impression is clearly gained that he was acting so as, in the words of the learned Single Judge, "to shield the respondent". It cannot be too strongly emphasised that unless the agents employed for the execution of peremptory orders of the High Court issued in its high jurisdiction in habeas corpus as a Court of Record, are men of complete integrity, the exercise of that jurisdiction, and in the course of time the jurisdiction itself, are liable to be gravely prejudiced. In the present case, it can be held with complete confidence, not by reason of anything written or said by Fazal Ahmad, but because of H. C. Abdul Hamid's unqualified admission of the allegations of fact made against him in the report, that there was indeed an action on the part of H. C. Abdul Hamid which clearly amounted to refusal to obey the orders of the High Court, and to obstruct the exercise of the High Court's power in habeas corpus. Had there been no such clear admission, the two variant statements of Fazal Ahmad were calculated to nullify the powers exercised by the High Court in the case, and. it is to be hoped that due notice of this will be taken by those in charge of the administrative affairs of the High Court. But as to H. C. Abdul Hamid there can be no question but that he acted in a most unseemly manner for a person who is invested by his office with the duty of enforcing the law which involves, on his own part as strict obedience to lawful orders as he is required to exact from members of the public in the name of law. His conduct shows an attitude of intolerance towards orders which ran counter to the action which it appears he had intended to take in relation to the detenues. The offence is a very grave one and the sentence awarded cannot at all be regarded as excessive. The appeal is accordingly dismissed. K. B. A. Appeal dismissed.